Howard Keel

Harold Clifford Keel was born on April 13, 1919, in Gillespie, Illinois, the younger of two sons of Homer Keel, a former Navy man turned coalminer, and his wife Grace Margaret, née Osterkamp. After his father's death in 1930, Keel and his mother relocated to California, where he graduated from Fallbrook High School at seventeen. He held a variety of jobs, including long-haul truck driving and a position as a traveling representative for Douglas Aircraft Company. Known professionally as Howard Keel, he became an American actor and singer recognized for his bass-baritone voice, a career that spanned Broadway, Hollywood film, television, and recording. He died on November 7, 2004.

Keel's path to performance began at age twenty, when his landlady overheard him singing and encouraged him to pursue vocal lessons. Among his musical influences was baritone Lawrence Tibbett. His first public performance came in the summer of 1941, when he sang the role of Samuel the Prophet in Handel's oratorio Saul, sharing a duet with bass-baritone George London. His Broadway career began in 1945 when he stepped in as a vacation replacement for John Raitt in Carousel, playing Billy Bigelow from August 20 through September 8. Two weeks later he assumed the lead role of Curly in Oklahoma! at the St. James Theatre, temporarily leaving that production to cover for Raitt again from June 3 through August 31, 1946, before returning to the show. In 1947, Oklahoma! became the first American postwar musical to travel to London, and Keel was part of that company. At the Drury Lane Theatre on April 30, 1947, an audience that included the future Queen Elizabeth II called for fourteen encores.

Keel made his film debut under the name Harold Keel in the British production The Small Voice in 1948, released in the United States as The Hideout, in which he played an escaped convict holding a playwright and his wife hostage. From London's West End he moved to Hollywood in 1949, signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His musical film debut came as Frank Butler opposite Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun in 1950, a substantial hit that established him as a star. A string of MGM productions followed, including Pagan Love Song and Three Guys Named Mike, both in 1950 and 1951 respectively. Show Boat in 1951, in which he played the male lead alongside Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner, proved especially popular. Warner Bros. borrowed him to play Wild Bill Hickok opposite Doris Day in Calamity Jane in 1953, another success. That same year he reunited with Grayson for Kiss Me Kate. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954, with Jane Powell, was among his biggest commercial achievements, generating over three million dollars in profit for MGM. After a series of less profitable pictures, including Jupiter's Darling and Kismet, both in 1955, MGM released him from his contract.

Returning to the stage, Keel appeared in a short-lived revival of Carousel in 1957. His Broadway activity continued into the late 1950s and early 1960s, with appearances in the musical Saratoga, which ran in 1959 and 1960, and a replacement role for Richard Kiley in No Strings in 1962. He also performed Carousel again in 1962 and 1966. During the 1960s his screen work shifted largely to B-Westerns for producer A. C. Lyles, including Waco and Red Tomahawk in 1966 and Arizona Bushwhackers in 1968, along with a supporting part in the John Wayne film The War Wagon in 1967. In England he starred in The Day of the Triffids in 1962 and reprised his lead role in a BBC 2 television production of Kiss Me Kate broadcast on April 21, 1964. From 1971 to 1972, Keel appeared in both the West End and Broadway productions of the musical Ambassador, which was not a commercial success. Additional Broadway credits include Plaza Suite and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, with his Broadway appearances spanning 1943 to 1972.

Outside of his film and stage work, Keel appeared at The Muny in St. Louis in several productions, including the role of Adam in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954, Emile de Becque in South Pacific in 1992, and General Waverly in White Christmas in 2000. In early 1970 he met Judy Magamoll, who was twenty-five years his junior. Their relationship led to marriage, and in 1974 Keel became a father for the fourth time with the birth of his daughter Leslie Grace. In January 1986 he underwent double heart bypass surgery.

By 1980, Keel had moved his family to Oklahoma with plans to join an oil company, but a guest appearance on The Love Boat led to contact with the producers of the television series Dallas. Beginning in 1981 with guest appearances, he joined the show permanently as oil baron Clayton Farlow, a character originally conceived as a partial replacement for the patriarch Jock Ewing following the death of actor Jim Davis. Clayton proved popular enough with viewers to become a series regular, and Keel remained with Dallas through its conclusion in 1991. The role revived both his acting career and his recording work. At age sixty-four he launched his first solo recording career, releasing the album With Love in 1984. That same year, And I Love You So reached number six on the UK Albums Chart and number thirty-seven in Australia. The follow-up, Reminiscing – The Howard Keel Collection, peaked at number twenty on the UK Albums Chart and spent twelve weeks on that chart in 1985 and 1986, also reaching number eighty-three in Australia. In 1988, Just for You reached number fifty-one on the UK Albums Chart. In 1994, Keel and his wife relocated to Palm Desert, California.