--- name: "Evelyn Keyes" canonical: "https://film.one/person/evelyn-keyes" fi1m_id: "evelyn-keyes" imdb_id: "nm0450810" tmdb_id: 11494 wikidata_id: "Q253328" roles: ["Actor"] born: "20 November 1916" died: "4 July 2008" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 71 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T02:56:01.902843+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Evelyn Keyes ## Identity Evelyn Keyes - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/evelyn-keyes - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** evelyn-keyes - **IMDb ID:** nm0450810 - **TMDB ID:** 11494 - **Wikidata ID:** Q253328 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Keyes, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q253328, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0450810/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/11494 Actor. Born 20 November 1916 in Port Arthur, Texas, USA. Died 4 July 2008. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 20 November 1916, Port Arthur, Texas, USA - **Died:** 4 July 2008 - **Active:** 1939–1956 - **Also known as:** Evelyn Louise Keyes - **Average Fi1m score:** 71, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 74 (1), 1940s 77 (1), 1950s 63 (1) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 71 to 77 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 1 of 2 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Romance 3, Comedy 2, Fantasy 2, Adventure 1, Drama 1, Family 1 - **Screen time:** 9 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $444m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Keyes, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q253328, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0450810/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/11494 ## Streaming the US now - **The Roku Channel:** [*Here Comes Mr. Jordan*](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) (77) - **HBO Max:** [*Gone with the Wind*](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Evelyn Keyes > Evelyn Keyes spent fifteen years playing the good woman who waits, and played her well. The studio system rarely asked more of her, and the one film that did, *The Prowler* (1951), is not the one she is remembered for. In *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Evelyn Keyes plays Bette Logan. She is good, and worried, and grateful, and Alexander Hall's script has no other notes for her. What she does with the three she is given is worth noticing: she listens to the man opposite as if he might turn out to be someone other than he appears, which, since the whole joke of the film is that he is, gives the scenes a charge the writing did not put there. We liked her more than the part deserved, and came away mildly annoyed on her behalf, because the romance is settled by Claude Rains telling the lovers they belong together and Keyes is left to take his word for it. That was the pattern. She came to Hollywood at twenty after dancing in Atlanta clubs; Cecil B. DeMille put her under personal contract and into *The Buccaneer* (1938) and *Union Pacific* (1939). She auditioned for Scarlett O'Hara and was given Suellen, Scarlett's sister, in *Gone with the Wind* (1939), a small part in a long film that nonetheless fixed how the public thought of her for the rest of her life. Columbia signed her in 1940. For the next decade and a half she led B-pictures and supported in bigger ones, most successfully *The Jolson Story* (1946), where she played Julie Benson. The usual complaint is that she was typecast as the girl who gets the boy, and that Harry Cohn's Columbia rarely handed her anything harder. On the evidence of our two reviews the complaint holds: neither film needed her to be more than pleasant, and one of them barely needed her at all. Glenn Ford was her most frequent partner, six films together, which gives you the shape of the decade. The exception is *The Prowler* (1951), a thriller in which she plays a married woman, Susan Gilvray, and which she herself considered her best performance. We have not reviewed it and will not judge it here, beyond saying that it is the one film in which she is credited with carrying the weight rather than waiting for it. Her last major part was Helen Sherman in Billy Wilder's *The Seven Year Itch* (1955); she retired from features the following year. Looking back, she said she got to star in her own films. She did, and few people remember them; the part everyone remembers is the one where she stood behind her sister. If you want to know what she could do, find *The Prowler*, then return to *Mr. Jordan* and watch how much she gets out of grateful. ## Biography Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American actress. Born in Port Arthur, Texas, she began as a chorus girl and was signed to a personal contract by Cecil B. DeMille after arriving in Hollywood. She made her film debut in *The Buccaneer* (1938) and was cast as Suellen O'Hara in *Gone with the Wind* (1939). Keyes signed with Columbia Pictures and appeared in films including *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), *The Jolson Story* (1946) and *The Seven Year Itch* (1955). She retired from major film roles in the mid-1950s but continued occasional acting and later wrote memoirs, including *Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister* (1977). She was married to directors Charles Vidor and John Huston, and to bandleader Artie Shaw. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, nytimes.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *Around the World in 80 Days* (1956), Fi1m 63, as Paris Tart — [page](https://film.one/film/around-the-world-in-80-days.md) - *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Fi1m 77, as Bette Logan — [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) - *Gone with the Wind* (1939), Fi1m 74, as Suellen O'Hara — [page](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) ## Complete filmography (53) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Wicked Stepmother* (1989), as Witch Instructor - *A Return to Salem's Lot* (1987), as Mrs. Axel - *Amazing Stories* (1985), series, as Evelyn Chumsky - *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), series, as Edna, Wanda Polaski, Sister Emily - *A Matter of Diamonds* (1968), as Mrs. Panzack - *ITV Playhouse* (1967), series, as Mrs. Panzack - *Around the World in 80 Days* (1956), as Paris Tart — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/film/around-the-world-in-80-days.md) - *The Seven Year Itch* (1955), as Helen Sherman - *Top of the World* (1955), as Virgie Rayne - *Climax!* (1954), series, as Drusilla Cayley - *Hell's Half Acre* (1954), as Donna Williams - *99 River Street* (1953), as Linda James - *Rough Shoot* (1953), as Cecily - *It Happened in Paris* (1952), as Patricia Moran - *One Big Affair* (1952), as Jean Harper - *Iron Man* (1951), as Rose Warren Mason - *The Prowler* (1951), as Susan Gilvray - *Smuggler's Island* (1951), as Vivian Craig - *The Killer That Stalked New York* (1950), as Sheila Bennet - *Lux Video Theatre* (1950), series, as Jane - *Mrs. Mike* (1949), as Kathy O'Fallon Flannigan - *Mr. Soft Touch* (1949), as Jenny Jones - *Enchantment* (1948), as Grizel Dane - *The Mating of Millie* (1948), as Millie McGonigle - *Johnny O'Clock* (1947), as Nancy Hobson - *The Jolson Story* (1946), as Julie Benson - *The Thrill of Brazil* (1946), as Vicki Dean - *Renegades* (1946), as Hannah Brockway - *A Thousand and One Nights* (1945), as Babs The Genie - *Strange Affair* (1944), as Jacqueline "Jack" Harrison - *Nine Girls* (1944), as Mary O'Ryan - *There's Something About a Soldier* (1943), as Carol Harkness - *Dangerous Blondes* (1943), as Jane Craig - *The Desperadoes* (1943), as Allison McLeod - *Flight Lieutenant* (1942), as Susie Thompson - *The Adventures of Martin Eden* (1942), as Ruth Morley - *Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 2* (1941), Actor - *Ladies in Retirement* (1941), as Lucy - *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), as Bette Logan — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) - *The Face Behind the Mask* (1941), as Helen Williams - *Beyond the Sacramento* (1940), as Lynn Perry - *Before I Hang* (1940), as Martha Garth - *The Lady in Question* (1940), as Francois Morestan - *Slightly Honorable* (1939), as Miss Vlissingen - *Gone with the Wind* (1939), as Suellen O'Hara — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) - *Union Pacific* (1939), as Mrs. Calvin - *Sudden Money* (1939), as Mary Patterson - *Paris Honeymoon* (1939), as Village Girl (uncredited) - *Artists and Models Abroad* (1938), as Girl (uncredited) - *Sons of the Legion* (1938), as Linda Lee - *Men with Wings* (1938), as Nurse - *Dangerous to Know* (1938), as Party Guest (uncredited) - *The Buccaneer* (1938), as Madeleine ## Gallery - ![Members of the Hollywood Committee for the First Amendment disembarking plane in Los Angeles, California. The members are Marsha Hunt, Shepperd Strudwick, Paul (1947)](https://film.one/media/person/103504/gallery-b4670bc6b709.jpg) Members of the Hollywood Committee for the First Amendment disembarking plane in Los Angeles, California. The members are Marsha Hunt, Shepperd Strudwick, Paul (1947) — Los Angeles Daily News, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Committee_for_the_First_Amendment_1947.jpg/1280px-Committee_for_the_First_Amendment_1947.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![L to R: Ludwig Donath, Tamara Shayne, Evelyn Keyes and William Demarest in The Jolson Story 1946](https://film.one/media/person/103504/gallery-90927321a7ea.jpg) L to R: Ludwig Donath, Tamara Shayne, Evelyn Keyes and William Demarest in The Jolson Story 1946 — Columbia Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Scene_from_%27The_Jolson_Story%27%2C_1946.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photograph of a formal presentation of Daisy Suckley's The Story of Fala (audio version) which took place in the President's private study at the FDR Presidenti (1946)](https://film.one/media/person/103504/gallery-7f10c220d8fc.jpg) Photograph of a formal presentation of Daisy Suckley's The Story of Fala (audio version) which took place in the President's private study at the FDR Presidenti (1946) — FDR Presidential Library & Museum, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Suckley-Keyes-Fala-Recording-1946.jpg/1280px-Suckley-Keyes-Fala-Recording-1946.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Tri-City Drive-In theater advertisement for the American romantic comedy film The Seven Year Itch (1955). From the 20 July 1955 San Bernardino Sun.](https://film.one/media/person/103504/gallery-cdfd92018a48.jpg) Tri-City Drive-In theater advertisement for the American romantic comedy film The Seven Year Itch (1955). From the 20 July 1955 San Bernardino Sun. — 20th Century-Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Tri-City_Drive-In_Ad_-_20_July_1955%2C_Loma_Linda%2C_CA.jpg/1280px-Tri-City_Drive-In_Ad_-_20_July_1955%2C_Loma_Linda%2C_CA.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Evelyn Keyes](https://film.one/media/person/103504/gallery-1e013da0fd97.jpg) Evelyn Keyes — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/evelyn-keyes