Robert Keith

Robert Keith, born Rolland Keith Richey on February 10, 1898, in Fowler, Indiana, was an American stage and film actor and book writer who worked under his professional name from the early 1920s until his death on December 22, 1966. He was the son of Mary Della (née Snyder) and James Haughey Richey.

Keith's Broadway career spanned from 1921 to 1948 and encompassed both acting and book writing. His stage credits included The Tightwad, Singapore, January Thaw, A Place of Our Own, and Mister Roberts, among other productions.

His screen work concentrated largely in the 1950s, during which he built a substantial career as a character actor appearing in several dozen films. Among his notable roles was a father figure in Fourteen Hours (1951) and a psychopathic gangster in The Lineup (1958). He appeared in The Wild One (1953) as the police chief and father of Marlon Brando's love interest, and later played a different law enforcement figure — this time Brando's antagonist — in the film musical Guys and Dolls. He also held a significant supporting role in Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind.

On television, Keith appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Ten O'Clock Tiger" and "Final Escape," as well as a 1954 episode of The Motorola Television Hour titled "Atomic Attack," in which he played scientist Garson Lee. He portrayed Richard Kimble's father in The Fugitive and appeared in The Twilight Zone episode "The Masks," playing Jason Foster, a wealthy New Orleans patriarch whose family awaits his death. That role marked his final screen appearance.

Keith was married four times. His second wife was stage actress Helena Shipman, with whom he had a son, actor Brian Keith, born in 1921. On April 18, 1927, he married actress Peg Entwistle, who was a decade his junior. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929, with Entwistle citing abuse and domestic cruelty and alleging that Keith had misled her into believing he had no prior marriages. In 1930, Keith wed his fourth wife, Dorothy Tierney, in a private ceremony on an undisclosed date. The two had met in late 1929 while each was performing at separate theatres in the San Francisco Bay Area and remained together until Keith's death. Among the honorary pallbearers at his funeral were Ronald Reagan, Edward G. Robinson, and James Cagney.