Hiram Keller

Hiram Keller, born Hiram Keller Undercofler Jr. on May 3, 1944, in Moody Field, Georgia, was an American actor and model who worked in theater, film, and the New York underground arts scene. He died of liver cancer in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 20, 1997, at the age of 52.

Keller was the son of Hiram Keller Undercofler Sr., a former lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and Flora Gatewood. He began studies in law at the University of Georgia before leaving school and relocating to Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked as a window designer. Following a trip to California, he moved to New York City to live with an uncle. In 1966, he attended classes at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio at Carnegie Hall, where Stella Adler was among the instructors, though he found Method acting training incompatible with his approach to the craft.

His entry into professional performance came through his relationship with actress Monique van Vooren, who secured him a position waiting tables at Arthur's nightclub. When van Vooren invested in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1968, she arranged with producer Michael Butler for Keller to be placed in the cast. As a member of the show's tribe, Keller became the first performer to appear nude on Broadway, a distinction that generated considerable public controversy. His Hair co-star Emmaretta Marks joined him on the cover of the November 1969 issue of After Dark for a feature on erotica.

His visibility in Hair drew the attention of Italian filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, who passed Keller's photograph to director Federico Fellini. Fellini subsequently invited Keller to Rome for an audition and cast him as Ascyltus in his 1969 surreal adaptation of Gaius Petronius's Satyricon. Fellini's screenwriter Bernardino Zapponi noted that Keller possessed a photogenic quality and the knowledge required by the role. The film brought Keller significant international recognition and opened the European film market to him.

Following Satyricon, Keller appeared in a series of European productions across multiple countries and genres. He took the leading role in the Greek film Orestis in 1969. In 1970, he appeared alongside John Phillip Law in Strogoff, an Italian-French-German-Bulgarian co-production based on Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff. In 1972, he starred with Giancarlo Giannini in Alberto Lattuada's comedy Sono stato io and played the male lead opposite Jane Birkin in the Antonio Margheriti-directed horror film Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye. Two Italian television productions occupied him in 1974: Miklós Jancsó's historical drama Roma rivoule Cesare and the series Orlando furioso, adapted from Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem. That same year, he and his Satyricon co-star Donyale Luna appeared together on the cover of the October 1974 issue of Interview magazine. In 1975, he took the main role in the science fiction thriller Lifespan, alongside Tina Aumont and Klaus Kinski, and in 1976 appeared in Catherine Breillat's A Real Young Girl. His final film was the 1982 Jamaican cult production Countryman, in which he starred alongside his wife, actress Kristina St. Clair.

Keller also worked as a runway and print model and participated in the New York underground scene associated with Andy Warhol. He was bisexual and was involved at various points with van Vooren, ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis, and film director Wallace Potts. He married Kristina St. Clair in 1981; the marriage ended in 1987. The couple had a daughter, Serena Keller Undercofler, who later worked in the film industry as a music supervisor. Keller spent his final years with his family in Atlanta, Georgia, the city where he died in 1997.