--- name: "Howard Keel" canonical: "https://film.one/person/howard-keel" roles: ["Actor"] born: "13 April 1919" died: "7 November 2004" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T02:50:48.643617+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." --- # Howard Keel Actor. Born 13 April 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois, U.S.. Died 7 November 2004. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 13 April 1919, Gillespie, Illinois, U.S. - **Died:** 7 November 2004 - **Also known as:** هاوارد کیل, Harold Clifford Keel - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Keel, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q325427, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0444476/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/39601 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*Seven Brides for Seven Brothers*](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Howard Keel > Howard Keel was a voice with a man attached: a big, easy bass-baritone that filled MGM's Technicolor musicals and a screen presence that never doubted its welcome. Ask him to sing and he is superb. Ask him to brood and the film waits. Howard Keel comes down the mountain in *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954) singing 'Bless Yore Beautiful Hide' and running an eye over the women of the town as if they were heifers at market. It is the Keel entrance in one stroke: the voice first, arriving before the man has said a word of dialogue, and the man behind it entirely pleased with himself. He does not wink at us. Adam Pontipee means every word, and Keel plays the boorishness straight, which is why the joke works and why Jane Powell's Milly has something to push against. The voice was the career. He came up on Broadway in the mid-1940s, understudying and then replacing leads in *Carousel* and *Oklahoma*, took the latter to London in 1947, and signed with MGM, where from *Annie Get Your Gun* (1950) to *Kismet* (1955) he was the studio's leading man for Technicolor musicals: Frank Butler, Gaylord Ravenal in *Show Boat* (1951), Fred Graham and Petruchio in *Kiss Me Kate* (1953), Wild Bill Hickok on loan to Warner Bros. for *Calamity Jane* (1953). Three times he was paired with Kathryn Grayson, once with Powell, and once, on *Seven Brides*, with Stanley Donen, who got the best film out of him. When the studio musical faded he went into Westerns and action pictures, and a later generation knows him not from any of this but as Clayton Farlow in *Dallas* (1981–1991). What he could do: sing, in a bass-baritone with real size and no strain, and stand in front of it with the shoulders of a man who has never been turned away from anywhere. In *Seven Brides* the scenes are his whenever he opens his mouth, and the studio's painted backdrops stop mattering for as long as the song lasts. We laughed at that entrance and felt slightly guilty about it, because the number is a man's shopping list for a wife, and Keel sings it so well that the objection arrives a beat late. What he could not do is the quieter part of the job. When Adam goes off to sulk in a trapper's hut, the film stalls, and the fault is the actor's as much as the script's: Keel is a large warm voice attached to a limited player, and sulking asks for something inside that he never carried. He knew it, or near enough. "As long as I can sing halfway decent, I'd rather sing than act," he said, and the films bear him out. Between numbers he waits, pleasantly, for the next one. Go to *Seven Brides* first, for the entrance and for what Powell does with him, and to the Grayson pictures after if the voice is what you came for. Do not go looking for the man behind it. There was a singer there, a good one, and he was honest enough to say so. ## Biography Howard Keel was an American actor and singer. Born Harold Clifford Keel on 13 April 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois, he died on 7 November 2004 in Palm Desert, California. He appeared in a number of MGM film musicals in the 1950s, including *Annie Get Your Gun* (1950) as Frank Butler, *Show Boat* (1951), *Calamity Jane* (1953) as Wild Bill Hickok, *Kiss Me Kate* (1953) as Fred Graham / Petruchio, and *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954) as Adam Pontipee. He later played Clayton Farlow in the television series *Dallas* from 1981 to 1991 and appeared in *The Day of the Triffids* (1963). Keel had a background in stage musicals before his film career and continued performing on stage and in television into later decades. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, themoviedb.org.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954), Fi1m 76, as Brother Adam Pontipee — [page](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md) ## Complete filmography (45) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Legends* (2006), series, as Wild Bill Hickok (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is* (1994), as Capt. Quentin "Jack" Jackson - *Walker, Texas Ranger* (1993), series, as D. L. Dade - *Good Sports* (1991), series, as Sonny Gordon - *Creepy Classics* (1987), as Bill Masen - (archive footage) - *That's Dancing!* (1985), as From 'Kiss Me Kate' (archive footage) - *Royal Variety Performance 1984* (1984), Actor - *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), series, as Larry Thorson - *Dallas* (1978), series, as Clayton Farlow - *The Love Boat* (1977), series, as Duncan Harlow - *That's Entertainment, Part II* (1976), as (archive footage) - *The Quest* (1976), series, as Shanghai Pierce - *That's Entertainment!* (1974), as (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Here's Lucy* (1968), series, as Stanley Livingston - *Arizona Bushwhackers* (1968), as Lee Travis - *The War Wagon* (1967), as Levi Walking Bear - *Red Tomahawk* (1967), as Capt. Tom York - *Waco* (1966), as 'Waco' - *Run for Your Life* (1965), series, as Hardie Rankin - *Kiss Me, Kate* (1964), as Fred Graham - *The Day of the Triffids* (1963), as Bill Masen - *Armored Command* (1961), as Col. Devlin - *The Big Fisherman* (1959), as Simon Peter - *Floods of Fear* (1958), as Donovan - *Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre* (1956), series, as Will Gorman - *Kismet* (1955), as The Poet - *Jupiter's Darling* (1955), as Hannibal - *Deep in My Heart* (1954), as Performer (segment "My Maryland") - *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954), as Brother Adam Pontipee — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md) - *Rose Marie* (1954), as Capt. Mike Malone - *Kiss Me Kate* (1953), as Fred Graham, "Petruchio" - *Calamity Jane* (1953), as Wild Bill Hickok - *Ride, Vaquero!* (1953), as King Cameron - *Fast Company* (1953), as Rick Grayton - *The Hoaxters* (1952), as Narrator (voice) - *Desperate Search* (1952), as Vince Heldon - *Lovely to Look At* (1952), as Tony Naylor - *Callaway Went Thataway* (1951), as Stretch Barnes / Smoky Callaway - *Across the Wide Missouri* (1951), as Narrator (voice) (uncredited) - *Texas Carnival* (1951), as Slim Shelby - *Show Boat* (1951), as Gaylord Ravenal - *Three Guys Named Mike* (1951), as Mike Jamison - *Pagan Love Song* (1950), as Hazard Endicott - *Annie Get Your Gun* (1950), as Frank Butler - *The Small Voice* (1948), as Boke ## Gallery - ![Howard Keel](https://film.one/media/person/1238108/gallery-54976e518c76.png) Howard Keel — AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Howard_Keel_%281919-2004%29_portrait.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Esther Williams joking around with Howard Keel on the set of "Jupiter's Darling" at Silver Springs. (1954)](https://film.one/media/person/1238108/gallery-b25d108fbaef.jpg) Esther Williams joking around with Howard Keel on the set of "Jupiter's Darling" at Silver Springs. (1954) — Bruce Mozert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Esther_Williams_and_Howard_Keel_%28kneeling%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of Suzanne Lloyd, Jack Ging as Beau McCloud, and Howard Keel. This episode deals with a southern plot to avenge the South's loss of the Civil War. Ging as (1961)](https://film.one/media/person/1238108/gallery-28fa4eaa7051.jpg) Photo of Suzanne Lloyd, Jack Ging as Beau McCloud, and Howard Keel. This episode deals with a southern plot to avenge the South's loss of the Civil War. Ging as (1961) — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Suzanne_Lloyd_Jack_Ging_Howard_Keel_Tales_of_Wells_Fargo_1961.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) --- © 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/howard-keel