b. Ethel Hilda Keeler, 25 August 1909, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, d.

28 February 1993, Rancho Mirage,

California, USA. A charming and petite actress and singer renowned for the Busby Berkeley ‘Depression-
era’ musicals she made with Dick Powell in the 30s, particularly for 42nd Street in which Warner Baxter
barked at her: ‘You’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back a star.’ That is exactly what
she did do, some time after taking dance lessons as a child and tap-dancing in the speakeasies of New
York while she was still a teenager. In 1927 she danced her way into three Broadway musicals Bye, Bye
Bonnie, Lucky, and The Sidewalks Of New York, and Florenz Ziegfeld offered her an important role with
Eddie Cantor and Ruth Etting in Whoopee! While the show was being cast she travelled to Hollywood to
make a short film, and there met Al Jolson. He followed her back to New York, and they were married in
September 1928. At her husband’s request, Keeler left Whoopee! before it reached Broadway, and for
the same reason she only spent a few weeks in Show Girl (in which she was billed as Ruby Keeler Jolson).
While she was performing in the latter show, Jolson rose from his seat in the stalls and serenaded his
wife with a song. For the next few years she stepped out of the spotlight and concentrated on being just
Mrs. Jolson. That is, until 1933, when Darryl F. Zanuck at Warner Brothers saw a film test she had made
some years before, and signed her for the ingenue role 42nd Street. All her years of training paid off as
she and Dick Powell and those marvellous Busby Berkeley dance routines (coupled with a tremendous
Harry Warren and Al Dubin score) made the film a smash hit. Keeler’s most memorable moment came
with a soft shoe number, ‘Shuffle Off To Buffalo’, but her demure, sincere personality and fancy
footwork delighted audiences throughout the picture. 42nd Street was followed by more of the same in
the form of Gold Diggers Of 1933, Footlight Parade, Flirtation Walk, Shipmates Forever, and Colleen. In
1935 she and Jolson starred in their only film together, Go Into Your Dance. Keeler made her last film for
Warners, Ready, Willing And Able in 1937. It contained what is supposed to be one of her favourite
sequences in which she dances with co-star Lee Dixon on the keys of a giant typewriter. After playing a
straight dramatic role in Mother Carey’s Chickens (1938) and appearing in one more musical,
Sweetheart Of The Campus (1941), she retired from the screen. In between making those two films, she
had divorced Jolson in 1940, and, a year later, married John Homer Lowe, a wealthy broker from
California, and they raised four children. Apart from making some guest appearances on television
during the 50s and 60s, and playing in a brief revival tour of the play Bell, Book And Candle, Keeler
stayed well away from the public eye until 1970, a year after Lowe died. She was tempted back to
Broadway for a revival of the 1925 musical No, No Nanette, partly because she was assured that it
would not ridicule the old musicals, and also because Busby Berkeley was to be the production
supervisor. The show was a triumph, running for 871 performances and winning several Tony Awards.
US television viewers were reminded of her prowess in 1986 when Ruby Keeler made her last major
public appearance in the ABC special Happy Birthday Hollywood. She died of cancer in February 1993.