Ruby Keeler's 102nd Anniversary

Happy Anniversary Ruby Keeler (25 August 1910 - 28 February 1993)


You Gotta Know How to Dance (Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Paul Draper in "Colleen", 1936)

Ruby Keeler, born Ethel Hilda Keeler, (August 25, 1910 – February 28, 1993) was an actress, dancer and singer most famous for her on-screen coupling with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Brothers, particularly 42nd Street (1933). "I could do a few dance routines but I didn't have a voice," she said in 1973. "I always dreaded the part when I had to sing back to Dick [Powell]."

From 1928 to 1940, she was married to singer Al Jolson. The two met in Los Angeles (not at Texas Guinan's as he would claim), where Nils Granlund had sent her to assist in Loew's marketing campaign for The Jazz Singer. Jolson was smitten and immediately proposed. Keeler reportedly initially declined, but later relented. The couple married September 21, 1928 in Port Chester, New York. The marriage (during which they adopted a son) was reportedly a rocky one. They moved to California, which took her away from the limelight. In 1929, at the urging of Ziegfeld, Jolson agreed to Keeler's returning to Broadway to star in Show Girl.

In 1933, producer Darryl F. Zanuck cast Keeler in the Warner Bros. musical 42nd Street opposite Dick Powell and Bebe Daniels. The film was a huge success due to Busby Berkeley's lavish innovative choreography. Following 42nd Street, Jack Warner gave Keeler a long-term contract and cast her in Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Dames, and Colleen. Keeler and Jolson starred together in Go Into Your Dance. Jolson and Keeler appeared on Broadway one last time together for the unsuccessful show Hold On To Your Hats in 1940. Ruby withdrew totally from the limelight. She married real estate broker John Lowe Jr. in October 1941 and went into semiretirement.

Then, spurred by producer Rigby, she returned to Broadway in "Nanette!" in 1971 and celebrated her biggest success ever, playing a Bible publisher's wife with a penchant for tap dancing. Personal Quotes: "Al Jolson was my first husband. He always used to boast that he was spoiling me for any man who might come after him. I think Al sensed that it wasn't easy for me being married to an American institution... Was he right about spoiling me? I'm sorry. I couldn't possibly say. I couldn't be that indiscreet," [on her stardom in the 1930s Warner Bros. musicals]: "It's really amazing. I couldn't act. I had that terrible singing voice, and now I can see I wasn't the greatest tap dancer in the world, either."

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