My favorite days of TCM’s Summer Under the Stars are those devoted to character actors, neglected stars, or actors whose careers were limited to one genre—sort of, the forgotten and forsaken of film history. It’s not that these actors were not famous, established, or major stars in their day, but to today’s audiences, they lack the iconic recognition of Golden Age favorites like Bogart, Tracy, Ball, or Davis. If it weren’t for TCM, the forgotten and forsaken would be lost to time.
Case in point: Ask most people to name a Ruby Keeler film, and the response would be, “Who?” Even movie lovers know her only from a handful of Warner Bros. musicals, specifically 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933. I confess I knew very little about her: I have seen her Depression-era musicals, I remembered that she was married to Al Jolson, and I recalled that she had an amazing comeback in the early 1970s when she starred on Broadway in No, No Nanette.
AFTER DECADES OF RETIREMENT, KEELER RETURNED TO BROADWAY FOR ‘NO, NO NANETTE” DIRECTED BY NONE OTHER THAN BUSBY BERKELEY. HERE THE TWO PROS CELEBRATE AFTER OPENING NIGHT.
When I saw that Friday, August 19, was Ruby Keeler day on TCM, an image of Ruby hoofing on top of a car from 42nd Street popped into my mind’s eye. I wondered how she arrived at that point in her career and what happened to her between those Warners musicals and her comeback. What I discovered was that young Ruby Keeler led a colorful life filled with memorable encounters and experiences.
Born in Nova Scotia into a poor Irish Catholic family, Ethel “Ruby” Keeler was raised in New York, where she was enrolled as a child in the Jack Blue School of Rhythm and Taps. Blue had worked with the legendary George M. Cohan, and he taught Ruby in the Cohan style. Small wonder that she landed a part in the chorus of Cohan’s Rise of Rose O’Grady—at age 13. Keeler also studied with Buddy Bradley and maybe Bill Robinson, though the latter can’t be confirmed.
Like Cohan, Keeler was a hoofer. Hoofing is not a slang term for tap dancing. It’s actually a specific style of tap, which is sometimes described as “dancing into the floor” because of the emphasis placed on stomps and stamps in syncopation. In classic tap, upper-body poise and posture are important; at times, the dancer seems to be posing. But, in hoofing, the arms are used for balance. In 42nd Street, Keeler pulls off her skirt to begin tapping in a pair of short shorts and a ruffled blouse. Her arms seem to flail inelegantly and ungainly as she solidly pounds out the steps in a clogging-like style. I always thought her style was clunky and unsophisticated until I read that it was a masculine, street style that dominated the stage during Prohibition. Keeler once noted, “I dance like a man because all my teachers were men.”
KEELER WAS PART OF GUINAN’S EL FEY GANG, WHICH APPEARED AT THE HIPPODROME.
Keeler quit school and entered show business during Prohibition when night clubs and speakeasies served illegal liquor while showcasing the latest in entertainment. Young Ruby worked in the chorus of a number of clubs, including the Silver Slipper and the El Fey, which—like most clubs—were financed or owned by organized crime. The El Fey was operated by the notorious Texas Guinan, a Roaring 20s personality that was larger than life. Guinan introduced acts, sang a little, cracked jokes, and taunted her male customers with her familiar greeting: “Hello Suckers.”
Sources like to claim that Texas protected Keeler, who was a teenager at the time, but I find it difficult to believe because of Guinan’s typically scandalous behavior and wild, club-focused lifestyle. If Guinan was watching out for Keeler, she didn’t do a stellar job, because the young dancer took up with minor-league mobster Johnny “Irish” Costello. One evening Al Jolson strolled into Guinan’s club in full evening attire as was his habit. He spotted Keeler in the chorus and introduced himself. Though she was less than half his age, he was attracted to the brunette with the youthful face and big, dark eyes. When Guinan revealed that she was Costello’s girl, he left the encounter at flirtatious conversation and moved on.
MR. and MRS. JOLSON
A few months later, back in California, Jolson and his agent William Morris (yes, that is the William Morris) were asked to meet Ziegfeld legend Fanny Brice at the train station. Brice was accompanied by two young hopefuls looking to find work in Hollywood. One of them was Ruby Keeler. Through their connections, Jolson and Morris secured Keeler a dancing gig at a night club in L.A. for $350 per week. Each night, Jolson sent flowers to Keeler’s dressing room.
When Keeler returned to New York, Costello wanted to pick up where they had left off, but young Ruby was in love. The mobster sent for Jolson to ask him about his intentions. According to lore and legend, which sounds greatly embellished, Costello informed America’s most famous entertainer that he had better marry Keeler, or there would be one less singer on Broadway. I doubt seriously if this had anything to do with Jolson’s decision to marry Keeler in Port Chester, New York, on September 21, 1928. By the way, he was 43 (maybe older), and she was 19. As I am fond of saying about marriage, it was a match made in hell.
KEELER FROM ‘SHOW GIRL’
Jolson and Keeler became the era’s super-couple—like Bogart and Bacall in the Golden Age, Burton and Taylor in the 1960s, and Brangelina today. Jolson was Jewish and Ruby was Irish Catholic: They were the real-life incarnation of a popular musical of the day—Abie’s Irish Rose. The press followed them everywhere, and reporters paid hotel clerks, waiters, and cab drivers for info on where the couple was going each night.
Jolson micro-managed Keeler’s career, treating it as an extension of his own. In 1929, Florenz Ziegfeld signed Keeler to dance in the new Eddie Cantor show Whoopee! The show opened in Philadelphia, but when Jolson saw that she was billed as Ruby Keeler Jolson, and that her name was below Cantor’s on the bill, he took her out of the show. He would not allow Cantor to have top billing over the Jolson name, though it was Cantor’s vehicle. A few months later, Ziegfeld asked Jolson if Keeler could appear in a new musical, Show Girl. On opening night, Jolson was in the audience waiting for his wife to make her entrance, though he was unaccustomed to handing the spotlight over to someone else. As George Burns later recalled, “It gave Jolie a pain in the ass.” When Keeler’s number began, Jolson dashed down the aisle and jumped on stage to join the chorus in the refrain, completely upstaging Ruby’s entrance. The crowd went crazy. The response was so tremendous that Ziegfeld suggested Jolson make the same “spontaneous” appearance every night. And, so he did for several consecutive nights. He even postponed the start of his new film for Warner Bros. to continue his surprise appearances in Show Girl. At the time, Keeler played along, though fellow stars Jimmie Durante, Eddie Jackson, and Lou Clayton were not pleased. However, years later, Keeler admitted that she hated Jolson for it.
KEELER AND POWELL WERE TEAMED IN SEVERAL WB MUSICALS, WHICH REPORTEDLY DID NOT PLEASE JOLSON.
Jolson eventually returned to Hollywood, while Ruby remained with the show. Not long after, she tripped during her number and broke her ankle, which closed the show permanently. Keeler joined her husband in Hollywood, where the two were a fixture at prize fights, movie openings, and restaurants. When Jack Warner suggested Keeler might try her luck in the movies, he had to convince Jolson that her appearances would be no competition against his star vehicles. He also had to allow Jolson to be her manager and to negotiate her salary. Warner wanted Keeler for 42nd Street, and Darryl F. Zanuck, who worked as a producer for WB at the time, negotiated her salary with Jolson. She received $10,000 for her role in the film. Jolson told Keeler he would not be visiting her on the set, because he refused to watch her kiss another man, even if it was only for a movie.
SOURCES SUGGEST THAT JOLSON WAS BEHIND KEELER’S EXIT FROM WARNER BROS. AFTER LEAVING WB, SHE FLOPPED IN ‘MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKENS.’ SHE MADE ONE MORE FILM, THEN DIVORCED JOLSON IN 1940.
And, that’s how Ruby Keeler came to make her first film. Keeler had an “aw, shucks” quality in her manner and her voice, which suited the sweet, innocent ingénue roles that she specialized in. But, by the time she danced on that car in 42nd Street, she was no sweet, young thing. She was a survivor of bawdy night clubs, Texas Guinan, the bright lights of Broadway, Flo Ziegfeld, small-time mobsters, and Jolson. She was 23 years old.