Evelyn Keyes - Actress (Classics)

 

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About:

Wednesday 21, May 2025, 17:30.

Keyes c. 1940s

Evelyn Keyes: Born - Evelyn Louise Keyes: November 20, 1916. Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.

Died July 4, 2008 (aged 91), Montecito, California, U.S.

Occupation Actress

Years active 1938–1993

Spouses: 

1.Barton Bainbridge: (m. 1938; died 1940)​

2.Charles Vidor: (m. 1944; div. 1945)​

3.John Huston: (m. 1946; div. 1950)​

4.Partner: Michael Todd (1953–1956)

5.Artie Shaw: (m. 1957; div. 1985)​

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Introduction:

Evelyn Louise Keyes (November 20, 1916 – July 4, 2008) was an American film actress. She is best known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.

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Early life:

Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, to Omar Dow Keyes and Maude Ollive Keyes, the daughter of a Methodist minister. After Omar Keyes died when she was three years old, Keyes moved with her mother to Atlanta, Georgia, where they lived with her grandparents. According to her memoir, Keyes was sexually molested by one of her brother's friends when she was five years old. As a teenager, Keyes took dancing lessons and performed for local clubs such as the daughters of the Confederacy.

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Film career:

A chorus girl by age 18, Keyes came out to Hollywood and was introduced to Cecil B. DeMille who in her own words "signed me to a personal contract without even making a test". After a handful of B movies at Paramount Pictures, she was cast in Say It in French (1938). However, Keyes had to drop out to have an abortion and was replaced by Olympe Bradna. Later, she auditioned for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Though she failed to get the part, Selznick was impressed by her Southern accent and cast her as Scarlett O'Hara's sister Suellen in January 1939.

Columbia Pictures signed her to a contract. In 1941, she played an ingenue in Here Comes Mr. Jordan. She spent most of the early 1940s playing leads in many of Columbia's B dramas and mysteries. She appeared as the female lead opposite Larry Parks in Columbia's blockbuster hit The Jolson Story (1946). She followed this up with an enjoyable minor screwball comedy, The Mating of Millie, with Glenn Ford. She was then in a 1949 role as Kathy Flannigan in Mrs. Mike. Keyes' last role in a major film was a small part as Tom Ewell's vacationing wife in The Seven Year Itch (1955). Keyes officially retired in 1956 but continued to act.

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Personal life:

In her autobiography Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life in and out of Hollywood, Keyes described being raped by her director Andrew Stone while working on Say It in French. Keyes became pregnant and got an abortion in late 1938, which got her fired from the picture, and replaced with Olympe Branda. Only weeks later, she was cast in Gone With the Wind. She married Barton Bainbridge shortly after. 

Bainbridge was an alcoholic and threatened Keyes with a gun on at least one occasion. They separated and in 1940, he committed suicide with a shotgun in her car, leaving a note. Keyes wrote: "The note said it was because I had left him. I never left a man again. I made them leave me."

Later, she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), actor/director John Huston (23 July 1946 – February 1950), and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985). Keyes said of her many love affairs: "I always took up with the man of the moment and there were many such moments." While married to Huston, the couple adopted a twelve-year-old Mexican child, Pablo, whom Huston had discovered while filming on location in Mexico for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In her memoir, Keyes claimed that her adoptive son sexually molested her and that they lost contact after only a few years.

Keyes expressed her opinion that Mrs. Mike was her best film. Among her many love affairs in Hollywood she recounted in Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister, were those with film producer Michael Todd (who left Evelyn for Elizabeth Taylor), actors Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Dick Powell, Anthony Quinn, David Niven and Kirk Douglas. She had to regularly fend off Columbia Pictures studio head Harry Cohn's advances during her career at the studio.

Keyes died of uterine cancer on July 4, 2008, at the Pepper Estates in Montecito, California, and was cremated. Half her ashes were sent to Lamar University in Port Arthur, Texas and the rest were divided among relatives and buried in a family plot at Waco Baptist Church Cemetery, Waco, Georgia, with a small tombstone bearing the epitaph Gone with the Wind.

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Filmography

Evelyn Keyes in The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Excluding appearances as herself.

Film

Year Title Role Notes

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1938

The Buccaneer Madeleine

Sons of the Legion Linda Lee

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1939

Sudden Money Mary Patterson

Union Pacific Mrs. Calvin

Gone with the Wind Suellen O'Hara

Slightly Honorable Miss Vlissigen

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1940

The Lady in Question Francois Morestan

Before I Hang Martha Garth

Beyond the Sacramento Lynn Perry

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1941

The Face Behind the Mask Helen Williams

Here Comes Mr. Jordan Bette Logan

Ladies in Retirement Lucy

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1942

The Adventures of Martin Eden Ruth Morley

Flight Lieutenant Susie Thompson

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1943

The Desperadoes Allison McLeod

Dangerous Blondes Jane Craig

There's Something About a Soldier Carol Harkness

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1944

Nine Girls Mary O'Ryan

Strange Affair Jacqueline 'Jack' Harrison

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1945

A Thousand and One Nights Babs

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1946

Renegades Hannah Brockway

The Thrill of Brazil Vicki Dean

The Jolson Story Julie Benson

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1947

Johnny O'clock Nancy Hobson

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1948

The Mating of Millie Millie McGonigle

Enchantment Grizel Dane

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1949

Mr. Soft Touch Jenny Jones

Mrs. Mike Kathy O'Fallon Flannigan

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1950

The Killer That Stalked New York Sheila Bennet

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1951

Smuggler's Island Vivian Craig

The Prowler Susan Gilvray

Iron Man Rose Warren Mason

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1952

One Big Affair Jean Harper

It Happened in Paris Patricia Moran

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1953

Rough Shoot Cecily Paine

99 River Street Linda James

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1954

Hell's Half Acre Donna Williams

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1955

Top of the World Virgie Rayne

The Seven Year Itch Helen Sherman

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1956

Around the World in 80 Days Cameo appearance

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1987 A Return to Salem's Lot Mrs. Axel

1989    Wicked Stepmother Witch Instructor

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Television

Year Title Role Notes

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1951 Lux Video Theatre Jane Episode: "Wild Geese"

1955 Climax! Drusilla Cayley Episode: "Wild Stallion"

1968 Playhouse Mrs. Panzack Episode: "A Matter of Diamonds"

1968 The Ugliest Girl in Town Mrs. Blair Episode: "Visitors from a Strange Planet"

1971 From a Bird's Eye View Mrs. Beal Episode: "The Matchmakers"

1983 The Love Boat Mrs. Parker Episode: "Bricker's Boy/Lotions of Love/The Hustlers"

1985, 1987, 1993 Murder, She Wrote Edna, Sister Emily, Wanda Polaski Episodes: "Sticks & Stones", "Old Habits Die Hard", "Dead to Rights"

1986 Amazing Stories Evelyn Chumsky Episode: "Boo!"

END.

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