An actor with character…
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The son of character actor Robert Keith and stage actress Helena Shipman, Brian spent the early months of his life sleeping in a dressing room drawer! It made such an impression on him that by age 3 he was appearing on screen with his father in the 1924 film Pied Piper Malone (alas, one of those treasures lost to us forever). When he began his acting career in earnest, like his father, it was character roles that excited him. Character actors can change their personas as often as they change their socks and Brian wanted that option.
 Peg Entwhistle |
the sign |
He was born Robert Alba Keith on November 14, 1921 in Bayonne, New Jersey and traveled on the road with his parents until they divorced. His father went to Hollywood and his mother continued her stage and radio work while Brian stayed on Long island with his maternal grandmother. A precocious but quiet child, he learned to read at a very early age and was soon devouring books. That thirst for knowledge never left him.
But tragedy was forging a fateful chain even then. Brian was 11 years old when his stepmother, Peg Entwhistle Keith, leaped to her death from beneath the H on the Hollywoodland sign in Hollywood Hills (in 1945 the “land” was removed) . She was only 24.
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After high school Brian joined the Marines where he served as an aerial gunner during WWII and received the Air Navy Medal. One incident reported; “Brian was a radio-gunner in the rear cockpit of a two-man Douglass “Dauntless” dive bomber….During an attack on Rabaul, the plane was badly damaged by enemy gunfire. The pilot struggled to keep the plane in the air (but) it fell behind. Two Jap(anese) “Zero” fighters attacked the crippled plane from the rear. Both Brian’s machine guns jammed. He fired red tracer ammunition from his pistol. The Jap(anese) broke off the attack but soon came back again. Now completely out of ammunition, Brian reached for the “Very” pistol and fired a red rocket flare at the fighters which immediately pulled up to figure out what that was. On the radio, Keith heard a New Zealand pilot saying “Don’t sweat it, Yank. I’ve got them surrounded up here!”
 "Arrowhead" 1953 |
After the war Keith went back to New York and began his acting career. He made his stage debut in Heyday in New Haven in 1946 and his Broadway debut as Mannion in Mr. Roberts (1948). Ironically his father was doing the same play at the same time in San Francisco. By 1932 Brian was in Hollywood where his first credited role was as Captain Bill North in the 1953 film Arrowhead with Charlton Heston.
As Robert Keith, Jr. he also jumped into television doing bits on drama shows like Police Story, Suspense and The Pepsi-Cola Theater. On the home front, he married Francis Helm but the marriage ended in divorce. In 1955 he married Judy Landon and they had 2 children of their own and adopted 3 more before they divorced in 1970.
But there was another link added to the chain of tragedies. This time it was closer to home when his first son died in childhood.
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For the next 10 years Brian played good guys, bad guys, rough sidekicks, sheriffs and generals but he almost never died, got a medal or got the girl. While Keith spoke fluent Russian and played Russian roles twice, he supposedly needed a translator in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! as the town sheriff. In 1960 he did The Westerner for Sam Peckinpah playing Dave Blassingame, illiterate, rootless and good-hearted if you weren’t on the wrong side. The series was critically acclaimed and is still regarded as the best half-hour western ever made but it only lasted for 13 episodes.
 Family Affair |
But his longtime friendship with Peckinpah suffered a major setback when Brian had to turn down the role of Deke Thornton in Sam’s The Wild Bunch for a show where the only “desperadoes” he forced to say “Uncle” were three kids. The show was A Family Affair and it ran for 138 episodes giving Brian 3 Emmy nominations. However, when CBS asked him to do Christmas publicity shots, Brian turned them down flat because he felt that they were exploiting a religious holiday.
 Parent Trap |
Brian’s gentle roles were the ones his audiences loved best...The Parent Trap, With Six You get Eggroll, and The Loneliest Runner A made-for-television movie, it was an autobiographical story by Michael Landon. Brian’s role as Arnold Curtis was based on Michael’s own father and Landon said later that only Brian could play that gentle role and make it believable. Michael considered his father his greatest hero so Brian must have cherished those words.
Brian remarried in 1970. She was Hawaiian actress Victoria Young who he met on the set of Krakatoa: East of Java. She later also played on The Brian Keith Show. They had 2 children, Robert and Daisy.
 Keith as Teddy Roosevelt |
Brian’s portrayal of President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion was another memorable performance . Some say they hope the “real” Teddy was just like the way Keith played him on screen. But we also must mention some television series that were also critically acclaimed…like Heartland, and Hardcastle and McCormick. From 1960 until the mid-1990s Brian Keith was all over the large and small screens. But his personal favorite was not on the screen but on the stage when he returned to Broadway in the title role in Hugh Leonard’s play “Da”.
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Brian was making Rough Riders when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Although he was a spokesman for Camel cigarettes some years ago, it was now 10 years since he had given up smoking. It was an aggressive cancer and the chemotherapy treatments were brutal. But the next link in the chain was more than he could bear….
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On April 16th, 1997 Brian’s lovely daughter Daisy committed suicide in her Hollywood Hills home. She was 28 years old. There was no note.
 Keith graves |
Two months later on June 24th, 1997 Brian Keith placed a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Like his daughter, he left no note. Brian is buried next to his daughter at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
 Victoria and Bobby Keith |
 Johnny Whitaker, Victoria, and Joe Santos |
Brian Keith left us a treasure of fine work but he has been terribly missed. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 26, 2008.
Artist...Altavenia LLOL