Evelyn Keyes was a talented and vivacious blonde actress who made a lasting impression on the silver screen. Despite her contributions to notable films such as Here Comes Mr. Jordan, The Jolson Story, Mrs. Mike, The Prowler, and 99 River Street, she received no significant awards during her career. However, film-goers remember her best for her bit role as Scarlett O'Hara's kid sister in Gone with the Wind, one of the most beloved epic films in American cinema.
Born on November 20, 1916, in Port Arthur, Texas, Evelyn Louise Keyes grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, with her mother, grandmother, and three sisters after her father's untimely death. She was trained in voice, dance, and piano, and initially hoped to become a ballerina. Instead, she entered beauty pageants and worked as a chorus girl before relocating to California at age 20.
A chance meeting with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille led to a Paramount Pictures contract, and Evelyn was groomed as a starlet. She initially appeared in bit and unbilled roles, including parts in The Buccaneer and Union Pacific. Her breakthrough role was Suellen O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, which led to a contract with Columbia Pictures.
Evelyn married four times, including to businessman Barton Bainbridge, director Charles Vidor, Hollywood titan John Huston, and musician Artie Shaw. Her marriages were marked by tumult and infidelity, and she also had numerous affairs with the rich and famous. She published two sensational memoirs that chronicled her personal life and negative takes on the Hollywood studio system.
Throughout her career, Evelyn appeared in a range of films, including war-era pictures, crime dramas, and musicals. She worked with notable directors and actors, including Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Dick Powell, and Glenn Ford. Her last marriage, to Artie Shaw, lasted longer than any of her previous ones, although they separated in the 1970s and did not divorce until 1985.
Evelyn returned to acting sporadically, appearing on stage and television, including an episode of The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. She was a world traveler, fluent in Spanish and French, and wrote a Hollywood-themed novel in her later years. Her association with Gone with the Wind and tell-all memoirs kept her in the public eye until her death on July 4, 2008, at the age of 91, due to uterine cancer at an assisted-living residence in Montecito, California.
