Keefe Brasselle

Keefe Brasselle was an American actor, television producer, and author born Henry Keefe Brassil on February 7, 1923, in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in New York by his mother, Madelaine Antonelli, an Italian nightclub singer, and her second husband, Harold Prindle, who guided Brasselle toward a career in show business. His father, Henry Richard Brassil, was an Irish hotel manager. Brasselle's Broadway appearances spanned 1962 to 1968 and included Come Blow Your Horn. He died on July 7, 1981, from liver disease at the age of 58.

Brasselle enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, the same year he married Norma Jean Aldrich, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1956. Within days of his Army separation in September 1944, he auditioned for and won the juvenile lead opposite Gloria Jean in the waterfront mystery River Gang, filmed in 1944 and released in 1945. Featured film roles followed, including two pictures produced by Ida Lupino, Not Wanted in 1949 and Never Fear in 1950. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed him in 1950 as a promising leading man. His mother, who worked as Betty Grable's personal hairdresser under the name Marie Brasselle, credited a public endorsement from Grable to columnist Louella Parsons as a significant boost to her son's early career.

Warner Bros. cast Brasselle in the title role of The Eddie Cantor Story in 1953, a biographical film produced in the wake of the commercially successful Jolson pictures starring Larry Parks. The film did not achieve comparable success, in part because Brasselle stood nearly a foot taller than Cantor and struggled to convey the comedian's natural warmth on screen. To promote the film, Brasselle appeared as a guest on a February 21, 1954, episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour, hosted by Gene Wesson. His film career did not advance as anticipated following the Cantor picture, and he moved into secondary roles in smaller productions. A 1957 effort to establish himself in England produced two feature films before he returned to the United States for periodic television work.

Seeking more consistent employment, Brasselle worked the nightclub circuit as a singer and comedian. In the summer of 1963, he headlined a summer replacement series for The Garry Moore Show titled The Keefe Brasselle Show, which featured actress Ann B. Davis in three episodes. A 21-year-old Barbra Streisand appeared on the program's first episode, broadcast June 25, 1963, to promote her debut album. That same year, Brasselle married singer Arlene DeMarco, one of The DeMarco Sisters, born January 28, 1933; the couple divorced in 1967.

Brasselle's most controversial chapter involved his relationship with CBS executive James Aubrey. Through his production company, Richelieu Productions, Brasselle secured Aubrey's approval for three untested television series — The Baileys of Balboa starring Paul Ford, The Cara Williams Show, and The Reporter starring Harry Guardino — none of which had been developed through standard script, pitch, or pilot processes. All three aired during the 1964–1965 season in what Variety described as the most favorable time slots in network television, yet all performed poorly in the ratings. CBS stockholders filed and won a lawsuit against both Aubrey and Brasselle over the arrangement, and Aubrey was removed as president of CBS Television in February 1965. Rumors circulated that Aubrey's approval of the Brasselle projects had been coerced through Mafia connections.

Brasselle subsequently channeled his CBS experience into fiction, publishing The CanniBal$ in 1968, a thinly veiled account of his dealings with Aubrey and the network, followed by a sequel, The Barracudas, in 1973, which targeted several entertainment figures he had worked with, including comedian Jack Benny. In 1974, Brasselle took on the role of director for the low-budget sex comedy If You Don't Stop It... You'll Go Blind, released in 1975 and distributed in Britain under the title You Must Be Joking. He staged the film's musical numbers himself and appeared in a specialty performance that incorporated Eddie Cantor's gestures and mannerisms. Despite poor reviews from mainstream critics, the film earned more than four million dollars, driven largely by college audiences at midnight screenings.