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The talented scion of a show business family, Keenan Wynn`s father was the great burlesque and TV buffoon Ed Wynn while his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, earned distinction on the other side of the entertainment ladder as a Shakespearean tragedian. Mother Hilda Keenan was also a minor actress. Born in New York City on July 27, 1916, during the height of his father`s Broadway popularity, Keenan grew up in the lap of luxury and was educated at St. Johns Military Academy. He initially followed in his grandfather`s dramatic footsteps as opposed to his dad`s clown shoes, making his professional bow in Maine with the Lakewood Players in a production of "Accent of Youth". By 1937 he was on Broadway with "Hitch Your Wagon" in two small roles. During the run of the show he met first wife, actress Eve Abbott, who became his coach, manager and advisor. At the same time he began to get steady radio work.
Through the aid and encouragement of his wife and her contacts, he eventually wrangled screen tests for both Twentieth Century-Fox and MGM Turned down by the first studio, he signed with MGM at a rather low pay scale of $300 a week. At MGM Keenan became THE utilitarian character player, adept at playing almost anything handed to him. Balding, homely but with real distinctive, imposing features, he made his unbilled debut in Somewhere I`ll Find You (1942), and went on to play a grab-bag of shady brutes usually in comic relief style. He was Gene Kelly`s agent in For Me and My Gal (1942); a gangster in Lost Angel (1943), a soldier buddy to Robert Walker in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944) and its sequel; a drunk in a diner in The Clock (1945), Lucille Ball`s tipsy beau in the Hepburn/Tracy vehicle Without Love (1945); and a news editor paired up with Ms. Ball again in Easy to Wed (1946). Moreover, he was given "B" co-star assignments in lesser material such as The Thrill of Brazil (1946), No Leave, No Love (1946) and The Cockeyed Miracle (1946).
Two sons were born to Keenan and Eve during the war years but he and Eve soon drifted apart. In 1946 the couple filed divorce papers with a third-party involvement in the form of family close friend and MGM star Van Johnson. Eve went on to marry Johnson the day after the couple`s divorce was decreed in 1947. Keenan`s second marriage in 1949 to Betty Jane Butler lasted only four years.
He re-signed with MGM in the post-war years and ventured on as one of Hollywood`s strongest character players. The drawback was that not many of his roles were high-quality challenges, roles that might have moved him toward the top of the MGM hierarchy. The more scene-stealing roles that came to him were his disagreeable, self-important burlesque star in the Clark Gable starrer The Hucksters (1947); his jazz reedman in Song of the Thin Man (1947); and the songwriter pal to Kirk Douglas in My Dear Secretary (1949). He was also given his quota of vulgar, blunt-talking bad guys to play, both comically and dramatically, in such films as Love That Brute (1950), Kind Lady (1951) and, in particular, his Runyonesque gangster in the musical classic Kiss Me Kate (1953). Partnered with cohort James Whitmore, their rendering of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" was one of many comedy highlights. He also doled out a number of brash soldier types such as in Fearless Fagan (1952), Battle Circus (1953), Code Two (1953) and Men of the Fighting Lady (1954).
After leaving MGM in 1954, he set his sights on TV, but the lu
Biography Credit: www.imdb.com/name/nm0943978/bio
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"I do not consider myself a star. I`m a craftsman and I know my craft."
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