Howard Keel dies
2004-11-07 22:45
Los Angeles - Howard Keel, the broad-shouldered baritone who romanced his way through a series of glittery MGM musicals such as Kiss Me Kate and Annie Get Your Gun and later revived his career with television's Dallas, died on Sunday.
Keel, 85, died on Sunday morning of colon cancer, according to his son, Gunnar Keel.
The son of an Illinois coal miner, Keel worked at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, California during World War II, then took singing lessons and starred in Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals in New York and London before being signed to an MGM contract.
The timing was perfect. The studio has assembled a vast stable of high-priced musical talent and was producing dozens of entertainment films that fit the nation's postwar mood.
Keel became a star in his first MGM film, playing Frank Butler to Betty Hutton's Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun.
Keel was 66 and presumably nearing the end of his career when he suddenly became a star in another medium.
From its start in 1978, Dallas with its combination of oil, greed, sex and duplicity had become the hottest series in television.
Jim Davis, who had played the role of Jock Ewing, died in 1981, and the producers needed another strong presence to stand up to the nefarious J.R. Ewing Jr. (Larry Hagman). They chose Keel, who had made a few Western movies but was best known as a musical star.
"The show was enormous," Keel reflected in 1995, "I couldn't believe it. My life changed again. From being out of it, I was suddenly a star, known to more people than ever before.
"Wherever I went, crowds appeared again, and I started making solo albums for the first time in my career." During his musical career, he had sung on cast albums only.
As Clayton Farlow, husband of "Miss Ellie" Ewing (Barbara Bel Geddes), Keel remained with Dallas until it folded in 1991.
- AP