Doris Keane

Doris Keane (December 12, 1881 – November 25, 1945) was an American actress born in St. Joseph, Michigan, to Joseph Keane and Florence Winter. She received her education privately in Chicago, New York, Paris, and Rome, and also trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her Broadway career spanned from 1903 to 1925, encompassing productions including Starlight, Welded, The Czarina, My Romance, and The Affairs of Anatol.

Keane made her first professional appearance in Whitewashing Julia in 1903, in a small role. She subsequently took on leading parts, including The Happy Marriage in 1909 and The Lights o' London in 1911. The role that defined her career came in 1913, when playwright Edward Sheldon cast her as Margherita Cavallini in Romance. William Courtenay played opposite her as a priest, a role Sheldon had originally offered to John Barrymore, who declined it in favor of continuing in comedies. Keane performed the part across the United States and Europe for five years and returned to it in revivals throughout the 1920s. Sheldon, who had written the play, reportedly fell in love with Keane and remained devoted to her throughout his life. In 1920, she adapted the role for a silent film version of Romance, distributed by the newly formed United Artists, with Basil Sydney as her male lead.

In 1918, Keane starred at the Lyric Theatre in London in Roxana, a comedy by Avery Hopwood, playing the title character Roxana Clayton opposite Basil Sydney. That same year she married Sydney, who was thirteen years her junior; the couple divorced in 1925. In 1922, she played Catherine the Great in The Czarina, a production that Sheldon had revised specifically for her.

Keane had one child, Ronda Keane (1915–2008), born in Cannes, France. Ronda's father was the financier Howard Gould, who acknowledged his paternity but did not marry Keane. Ronda later married Dr. Carl Muschenheim, a New York-based thoracic specialist, in 1951.

Beyond the stage, Keane was a subject of interest to visual artists of her era. The sculptor Jacob Epstein and the portraitist De Laszlo both created works depicting her, and at least two Royal Doulton figurines were modeled after her likeness, one of which depicted her holding a monkey associated with her role in Romance. She was also an avid reader who left behind an extensive personal library, which included The Upanishads. Keane died of cancer on November 25, 1945, at the LeRoy Sanitarium in New York City.