Ian Keith

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Ian Keith

Ian Keith (February 27, 1899 – March 26, 1960) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
actor.

Born Keith Ross in Boston, Massachusetts

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston is the State capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region, and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England." Boston city proper had a 2007 est...
, Ian Keith was a veteran character actor of the legitimate theater, and appeared in a variety of colorful roles in silent features of the 1920s. His stage training made him a natural choice for the new "talking pictures"; he played John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith

D. W. Griffith

David Llewelyn Wark "D. W." Griffith was a premier pioneering Academy Award-winning American film director. He is best known as the director of the groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance ....
's first talkie, Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery....
. Keith had a major role in director Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh

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Encyclopedia

Ian Keith (February 27, 1899 – March 26, 1960) was an American

United States

Boston, Massachusetts

D. W. Griffith

Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh was an United States film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh....
's 1930 western The Big Trail
The Big Trail

The Big Trail is a lavish early widescreen movie shot on location across the Western United States starring John Wayne in his first leading role and directed by Raoul Walsh....
. According to one Hollywood anecdote, Keith might have gone on to a stellar career as a leading man, but a dalliance with Walsh's wife on location is said to have cost him the chance to follow up his success. There may be some truth to this -- he didn't get the title role in the film version of Dracula
Dracula

Dracula is an 1897 in literature novel by Irish people author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula.Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature....
(1931) -- but Keith did keep working in films, albeit minor ones, until 1932, when Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil Blount DeMille was an Academy Award-winning United States film director. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies....
hired him for The Sign of the Cross
The Sign of the Cross

The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe is a non-fiction book published in 1994 by Ireland novelist Colm T?ib?n.In the book, T?ib?n describes successive Holy Weeks spent in Poland, Seville, Bavaria, Rome, and the Balkans and reflects on the condition of Catholicism in every place making it an intellectual survey of the state o...
. This established him as a dependable supporting player, and he went on to play dozens of roles in major and minor screen fare for the next three decades.

Ian Keith's tall frame (6' 2"), dark, handsome features (usually clean-shaven), and his resonant voice served him well. He became one of DeMille's favorites, appearing in many of the producer's epic films. He handled costume roles and modern-day professional types with equal aplomb. In the 1940s he became even busier, working primarily in "B" features and westerns and alternating between playing good guys (a chief of detectives in The Payoff, a friendly hypnotist in Mr. Hex, a blowhard politician in She Gets Her Man) and bad guys (a murder suspect in The Chinese Cat, a crooked lawyer in Bowery Champs, a swindler in Singing on the Trail). He also had a definite flair for comedy, and his florid portrayal of the comic-strip ham actor "Vitamin Flintheart" in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball was so amusing that he repeated the role in two more films.

He also appeared on many television episodes in the 1950s. In 1955, he was seen on screen in his only Shakespeare role, when he made a cameo appearance

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television....
as the Ghost opposite Richard Burton's Hamlet

Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle King Claudius, who has murdered King Hamlet, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude ....
in a sequence from the Edwin Booth

Edwin Booth

Edwin Thomas Booth , was a famous 19th century United States actor. He was born near Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland into the English American theatrical Booth family....
biopic Prince of Players
Prince of Players

Prince of Players is a 1955 in film 20th Century Fox biographical film about the great 19th century USA actor Edwin Booth. The film was directed and produced by Philip Dunne from a screenplay by Moss Hart, based on the book by Eleanor Ruggles....
. Cecil B. DeMille brought him back to the big screen for The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)

The Ten Commandments is a 1956 in film Film that dramatized the story of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince-turned deliverer of the Hebrews Slavery....
(1956); Keith played Ramses I

Ramesses I

Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the time-line of late 1290s BC is frequently cited as well as 1290s BC....
. He was cremated in New York City.

Marriages

Fern Andra (1932-1934)
Blanche Yurka
Blanche Yurka

Blanche Yurka was an United States theatre and film actress.----Born in St Paul, Minnesota, Yurka was an opera star before she became an actress....
Ethel Clayton
Ethel Clayton

Ethel Clayton was an United States actresses of the silent film era....
Hildegarde Pabst

External links

at Internet Broadway Database
photo gallery at NYP Library