Ian Keith

Ian Keith (born Keith Ross; February 27, 1899 – March 26, 1960) was an American actor.
Early years
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Keith grew up in Chicago. He was educated at the Francis Parker School there and played Hamlet in a school production at age 16.
Career
Keith was a veteran character actor of the stage, and appeared in a variety of colorful roles in silent features of the 1920s.
In 1919, as Keith Ross, he acted with the Copley Repertory Theatre in Boston. On Broadway, as Ian Keith, he performed in The Andersonville Trial (1959), Edwin Booth (1958), Saint Joan (1956), Touchstone (1953), The Leading Lady (1948), A Woman's a Fool - to Be Clever (1938), Robin Landing (1937), King Richard II (1937), Best Sellers (1933), Hangman's Whip (1933), Firebird (1932), Queen Bee (1929), The Command Performance (1928), The Master of the Inn (1925), Laugh, Clown, Laugh! (1923), As You Like It (1923), The Czarina (1922), and The Silver Fox (1921).
He played John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith's first sound film, Abraham Lincoln. Keith had a major role as a gambler in director Raoul Walsh's 1930 widescreen western The Big Trail starring John Wayne. In 1932, Cecil B. DeMille cast him in The Sign of the Cross. This established him as a dependable supporting player, and he went on to play dozens of roles—including Octavian (Augustus) in Cleopatra—in major and minor screen fare for the next three decades.
He became one of DeMille's favorites, appearing in many of the producer's epic films. He portrayed Count de Rochefort in both the 1935 version and the 1948 remake of The Three Musketeers. 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 appeared in a supporting role to Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley (1947) as a former vaudevillian turned carny who has succumbed to alcoholism. 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 played tough-guy military roles, such as Admiral Burns in Robert Gordon's sci-fi epic, It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955).
He also appeared on many television episodes in the 1950s, including starring in the premiere episode of The Nash Airflyte Theater in 1950. In 1955, he was seen on screen in his only Shakespeare role, when he made a cameo appearance as the Ghost opposite Richard Burton's Hamlet in a sequence from the Edwin Booth biopic Prince of Players. Cecil B. DeMille brought him back to the big screen for The Ten Commandments (1956); Keith played Ramses I.
Keith played Emmett Dayton in the radio soap opera Girl Alone.
Keith died in Medical Arts Hospital in New York on March 26, 1960, and was cremated in Hartsdale, New York.
Marriages
Blanche Yurka (1922 - 1926)
Ethel Clayton (1928 - 1931)
Fern Andra (m. in 1932 and again in 1934, when the legality of the first ceremony was questioned; divorced; in 1938 Andra married again)
Hildegarde Pabst (1936 - 1960)
Partial filmography
Manhandled (1924) as Robert Brandt (film debut)
Her Love Story (1924) as Captain Kavor
Christine of the Hungry Heart (1924) as Ivan Vianney
Love's Wilderness (1924) as Paul L'Estrange
Enticement (1925) as Richard Valyran
My Son (1925) as Felipe Vargas
The Talker (1925) as Ned Hollister
The Tower of Lies (1925) as Lars
The Greater Glory (1926) as Pauli Birbach
The Lily (1926) as George Arnaud
Prince of Tempters (1926) as Mario Ambrosio, later Baron Humberto Giordano
The Truthful Sex (1926) as Tom Barnes
The Love of Sunya (1927) as Louis Anthony
What Every Girl Should Know (1927) as Arthur Graham
Convoy (1927) as Smith
Two Arabian Knights (1927) as Shevket
A Man's Past (1927) as Dr. Fontaine
The Street of Illusion (1928) as Edwin Booth Benton
The Lookout Girl (1928) as Dean Richardson
The Divine Lady (1929) as Honorable Charles Greville
Prisoners (1929) as Nicholas Cathy
Light Fingers (1929) as Light Fingers
The Great Divide (1929) as Steven Ghent
Prince of Diamonds (1930) as Rupert Endon
Abraham Lincoln (1930) as John Wilkes Booth
The Big Trail (1930) as Bill Thorpe
The Boudoir Diplomat (1930) as Baron Belmar
A Tailor Made Man (1931) as Dr. Von Sonntag
The Sin Ship (1931) as Smiley Marsden
The Phantom of Paris (1931) as Marquis Du Touchais
Susan Lenox (1931) as Robert Lane
The Deceiver (1931) as Reginald Thorpe
The Sign of the Cross (1932) as Tigellinus
Queen Christina (1933) as Magnus
Dangerous Corner (1934) as Martin Chatfield
Cleopatra (1934) as Octavian
The Crusades (1935) as Saladin - Sultan of Islam
The Three Musketeers (1935) as de Rochefort
Don't Gamble with Love (1936) as John Crane
The Preview Murder Mystery (1936) as E. Gordon Smith
Mary of Scotland (1936) as James Stuart - Earl of Moray
White Legion (1936) as Dr. Julian Murray
The Buccaneer (1938) as Senator Crawford
Comet Over Broadway (1938) as Wilton Banks
The Sea Hawk (1940) as Peralta
All This, and Heaven Too (1940) as DeLangle
Remember Pearl Harbor (1942) as Capt. Hudson
Fall In (1942) as Army Doctor (uncredited)
The Payoff (1942) as Inspector Thomas
The Sundown Kid (1942) as J. Richard Spencer
Corregidor (1943) as Capt. Morris
Wild Horse Stampede (1943) as Carson
I Escaped from the Gestapo (1943) as Gerard
Five Graves to Cairo (1943) as Capt. St. Bride (uncredited)
That Nazty Nuisance (1943) as Chief Paj Mab
The Man from Thunder River (1943) as Henry Stevens
Bordertown Gun Fighters (1943) as Cameo Shelby
Adventures of the Flying Cadets (1943, Serial) as Col. Lee [Chs. 9-13]
Here Comes Kelly (1943) as L. Herbert Oakley - Attorney
Casanova in Burlesque (1944) as J. Boggs-Robinson
Arizona Whirlwind (1944) as Polini
The Chinese Cat (1944) as Dr. Paul Recknik
Cowboy from Lonesome River (1944) as Matt Conway
Bowery Champs (1944) as Ken Duncan
Under Western Skies (1945) as Prof. Moffat
Fog Island (1945) as Dr. Lake
Identity Unknown (1945) as Major Williams
Phantom of the Plains (1945) as Talbot Wilberforce Champneys aka Fancy Charlie
Song of Old Wyoming (1945) as Lee Landow
The Spanish Main (1945) as Captain Lussan
Northwest Trail (1945) as Inspector McGrath
Valley of the Zombies (1946) as Ormand Murks
Singing on the Trail (1946) as Jerry Easton
The Strange Woman (1946) as Lincoln Pittridge (uncredited)
Mr. Hex (1946) as Mr. Raymond, the Hypnotist
Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) as Vitamin Flintheart
Border Feud (1947) as Doc Peters
Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947) as Vitamin Flintheart
Nightmare Alley (1947) as Pete Krumbein
Forever Amber (1947) as Tybalt (uncredited)
The Three Musketeers (1948) as Rochefort
The Black Shield of Falworth (1954) as King Henry IV
Prince of Players (1955) as Ghost of Hamlet's Father in 'Hamlet'
New York Confidential (1955) as Waluska
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) as Adm. Burns
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1955, TV) as Roland Tarleton
Duel on the Mississippi (1955) as Jacques Scarlet
The Ten Commandments (1956) as Rameses I (final film)
References
External links
Ian Keith photo gallery at New York City Public Library
1899 births
1960 deaths
American male film actors
American male silent film actors
American male stage actors
Male actors from Boston
Male actors from New York City
20th-century American male actors
Male Western (genre) film actors
Francis W. Parker School (Chicago) alumni