Name
Kathleen Key
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1903-04-01
Deathday
1954-12-22 (51 years old)
Place of Birth
Buffalo, New York, USA
Biography
From Wikipedia:
Kathleen Key (April 1, 1903 – December 22, 1954) was an American actress who achieved a brief period of fame during the silent era. She is best remembered for playing Tirzah in the 1925 film Ben-Hur. Key was the great-great granddaughter of Francis Scott Key, composer of "The Star Spangled Banner", and a distant cousin of author F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Born Kitty Lanahan in Buffalo, New York, she debuted in films in 1920 in the film The Jackeroo of Coolabong, playing a lead role. From that point on to the end of the 1920s, Kathleen Key, sometimes credited as Kathleen Keys, starred in several films, but never really reached stardom, and was never given much credit for the roles she had, although there were some exceptions.
In the early '20s, Key had a well-known love affair with silent-film actor Buster Keaton, who was married at the time. As told in Keaton's biography, the actor attempted to call off the relationship, but Key flew into a jealous rage and ransacked his MGM dressing room, which caused her to be virtually blacklisted afterward by the movie industry. It is also stated that Keaton refused to give Key a monetary loan. A telegram, sent by one of Keaton's friends who had heard about the argument, comically read: "Congratulations. Hear you are off Key."
After her retirement in 1936, Keys spent the rest of her days in moderate comfort at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, California, where she died at the age of 51 in 1954. Her interment was located at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
Known For
6.598
Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich A...
7.6
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to Fran...
6.333
Singer Rose Carlton, otherwise known as 'The San Francisco Doll', accidentally kills her c...
6.3
A tour of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio in 1925 shows the people who make the movies ther...
6.8
The adventures of Oliver Tressilian, who goes from English gentry to galley slave to capta...
- 1925 The Big Parade as Miss Apperson (uncredited)
- 1930 Sweeping Against the Winds
- 1925 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ as Tirzah
- 1924 The Trouble Shooter as Nancy Brewster
- 1926 The Flaming Frontier as Lucretia
- 1920 The Rookie's Return as Gloria
- 1922 Bells of San Juan as Florrie Engel
- 1923 Hell's Hole as Mabel Grant
- 1926 Under Western Skies as Milly Lewis
- 1924 Revelation as Madonna
- 1927 Hey! Hey! Cowboy as Emily Decker
- 1927 Irish Hearts as Clarice
- 1923 The Man from Brodney's as Neenah
- 1924 The Sea Hawk as Andalusian Slave Girl
- 1929 The Phantom of the North as Colette
- 1923 Reno as Yvette - The Governess
- 1922 Where's My Wandering Boy Tonight?
- 1936 Klondike Annie
- 1923 North of Hudson Bay as Estelle MacDonald
- 1935 Thunder in the Night as Party Guest
- 1925 1925 Studio Tour as Self
- 1925 A Lover's Oath as Sherin
- 1921 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Georgette (uncredited)
- 1926 Money Talks as Vamp
- 1921 The Fighting Breed as Enid MacDonald (as Ethel Payton)
- 1926 The Desert's Toll as Muriel Cooper
- 1922 West of Chicago as Señoria Gonzales
- 1923 The Rendezvous as Varvara
- 1928 Golf Widows as Ethel Dixon
- 1920 The Jackeroo of Coolabong as Edith MacDonald
