Dennis O'Keefe(1908-1968)
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Tall, cheerful, outdoorsy leading man of Hollywood B movies who
started in show business as an infant accompanying his vaudevillian
parents ("Flanagan and Edwards, the Rollicking Twosome") on the stage.
In his teens, Dennis started to write film scripts while attending
college. He then tried to break into films as an extra, appearing under
his birth name Bud Flanagan. His easy-going manner and impudent grin --
possibly reminding Clark Gable of himself
(they worked together on
Saratoga (1937)) -- led to the star
suggesting Bud to MGM management for leading roles. In short order, Bud
Flanagan became Dennis O'Keefe, resident tough guy of action dramas and
the occasional comedy.
Serious acting was rarely called upon but Dennis handled the material
given to him with aplomb and good humour. After his contract
with MGM expired in 1940, he free-lanced and appeared in, arguably,
three of his best pictures: in support of
Roland Young and
Joan Blondell in the delightful
supernatural murder spoof
Topper Returns (1941); in the
Val Lewton-produced thriller,
The Leopard Man (1943); and in
the tense crime melodrama T-Men (1947)
which he co-scripted (with
John C. Higgins) for Eagle-Lion. This
rather unambitious little film for what was essentially considered a 'poverty row'
studio proved so successful that it spawned a CBS radio series three
years later. Dennis was chosen for the lead (though his character was
renamed) and his delivery was perfect for scripts which balanced drama
with light comedy.
For most of the period between 1944 and 1952, Dennis alternated roles
on radio with film work. He had another lead in the 1945 radio serial
"Hollywood Mystery Time" as a movie director-cum-sleuth. On screen, he
displayed his penchant for comedy in the funniest version of the
much-filmed
Brewster's Millions (1945),
followed by the forgettable farce
Getting Gertie's Garter (1945)
(from the same stable). Another fair, marginally off-beat comedy, was
The Lady Wants Mink (1953),
co-starring Dennis with Ruth Hussey and
Eve Arden. In addition, there were scores of
'cheap and cheerful' action films including several made in Europe.
Dennis eventually turned his hand to directing with
Angela (1954), a crime thriller set in Rome which he also co-scripted
under the pseudonym Jonathan Rix. At the end of the decade, Dennis
starred in his own short-lived television sitcom about a widowed Los
Angeles syndicated columnist. After that, he guested in just a few more
TV episodes before his untimely death from lung cancer in August 1968.
started in show business as an infant accompanying his vaudevillian
parents ("Flanagan and Edwards, the Rollicking Twosome") on the stage.
In his teens, Dennis started to write film scripts while attending
college. He then tried to break into films as an extra, appearing under
his birth name Bud Flanagan. His easy-going manner and impudent grin --
possibly reminding Clark Gable of himself
(they worked together on
Saratoga (1937)) -- led to the star
suggesting Bud to MGM management for leading roles. In short order, Bud
Flanagan became Dennis O'Keefe, resident tough guy of action dramas and
the occasional comedy.
Serious acting was rarely called upon but Dennis handled the material
given to him with aplomb and good humour. After his contract
with MGM expired in 1940, he free-lanced and appeared in, arguably,
three of his best pictures: in support of
Roland Young and
Joan Blondell in the delightful
supernatural murder spoof
Topper Returns (1941); in the
Val Lewton-produced thriller,
The Leopard Man (1943); and in
the tense crime melodrama T-Men (1947)
which he co-scripted (with
John C. Higgins) for Eagle-Lion. This
rather unambitious little film for what was essentially considered a 'poverty row'
studio proved so successful that it spawned a CBS radio series three
years later. Dennis was chosen for the lead (though his character was
renamed) and his delivery was perfect for scripts which balanced drama
with light comedy.
For most of the period between 1944 and 1952, Dennis alternated roles
on radio with film work. He had another lead in the 1945 radio serial
"Hollywood Mystery Time" as a movie director-cum-sleuth. On screen, he
displayed his penchant for comedy in the funniest version of the
much-filmed
Brewster's Millions (1945),
followed by the forgettable farce
Getting Gertie's Garter (1945)
(from the same stable). Another fair, marginally off-beat comedy, was
The Lady Wants Mink (1953),
co-starring Dennis with Ruth Hussey and
Eve Arden. In addition, there were scores of
'cheap and cheerful' action films including several made in Europe.
Dennis eventually turned his hand to directing with
Angela (1954), a crime thriller set in Rome which he also co-scripted
under the pseudonym Jonathan Rix. At the end of the decade, Dennis
starred in his own short-lived television sitcom about a widowed Los
Angeles syndicated columnist. After that, he guested in just a few more
TV episodes before his untimely death from lung cancer in August 1968.