Pert Kelton
Encyclopedia
Pert Kelton was an American vaudeville, movie, radio and television actress. She was the first actress who played Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners
with Jackie Gleason
and was a prominent comedic
supporting film
actress in the 1930s. She performed in a dozen Broadway productions between 1925 and 1968.
alongside Wallace Beery
, George Raft
, Jackie Cooper
and Fay Wray
. Directed by Raoul Walsh
, the film depicts Steve Brodie, the first man to supposedly jump off the Brooklyn Bridge
and live to brag about it. Kelton sings to a rowdily appreciative crowd in an energetic dive, using a curious New York accent to good comedic effect, with Beery and Raft arguing over her attentions afterward.
As the witty young Minnie in Gregory LaCava's pre-Code comedy Bed of Roses
(1933), she plays a bawdy prostitute (along with Constance Bennett
) fond of getting admiring men helplessly drunk before robbing them, at least until getting caught and tossed back into jail. Kelton has all the best lines, surprisingly wicked and amusing observations that would never be allowed in an American film after the Hollywood Production Code
was adopted. The movie remains realistic in terms of the interactions of the characters and features an early turn by Joel McCrea
as the leading man
, a small boat skipper who pulls Minnie from the river after she dives to escape capture.
Ironically, given her later blacklisting, Kelton's last movie for years was called Whispering Enemies (1939). Her next screen appearance was on television in The Honeymooners and other sketches on the Gleason show. Kelton's abrupt departure due to the blacklist was explained away as a result of "heart problems".
, It's Always Albert, The Stu Erwin Show and the 1941 soap opera We Are Always Young. In 1949, she did the voices of five different characters on radio's The Milton Berle Show
. She was also a regular cast member of The Henry Morgan
Show. In the early 1950s, she played the tart maid in the Monty Woolley
vehicle, The Magnificent Montague.
's Cavalcade of Stars. These sketches formed the eventual basis for the 1955 CBS sitcom The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason
starred as her husband Ralph Kramden, and Art Carney
as their upstairs neighbor Ed Norton. Elaine Stritch
played Trixie, the burlesque dancer wife of Norton, for one sketch before being replaced by Joyce Randolph
.
Kelton appeared in the original sketches, generally running about 10 to 20 minutes, shorter than the later one-season half-hour series and 1960s hour-long musical versions.
In the 1960s, Kelton was invited back to Gleason's CBS show to play Alice's mother in an episode of the hour-long musical version of The Honeymooners (also known as The Color Honeymooners), with Sheila MacRae
as a fetching young Alice. By this time, the original age discrepancies were reversed, with Ralph married to a much younger Alice than himself.
In 1963 Kelton appeared on The Twilight Zone
, playing the overbearing mother of Robert Duvall
in the episode "Miniature
."
In her last years, she was strongly identified with Spic and Span
because of her TV commercials for that product.
's Sunny
. She played "Magnolia" and sang a song of the same name.
Years later, she was twice nominated for Tony Awards: in 1960, as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical) for Frank Loesser
's Greenwillow
and as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for Spofford (1967–68). However, her most memorable Broadway appearance was as the impatient Mrs. Paroo (the mother of Marian Paroo) in Meredith Willson
's The Music Man
(1957), which she reprised in the 1962 film adaptation
, the role for which she is probably best remembered.
, Orry Kelly, and Rogers and Hart. It had a small outdoor theatre at its rear, along with a wishing well that may have inspired the song "There's a Small Hotel" from the musical, "On Your Toes" (1936). It also housed a speakeasy
in the basement. A sign above the hotel entrance reads, "Joyously Enter Here".
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...
with Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
and was a prominent comedic
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
supporting film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actress in the 1930s. She performed in a dozen Broadway productions between 1925 and 1968.
Films
Kelton was a young comedienne in A-list movies during the 1930s, often as the leading lady's wisecracking and equally attractive best friend. She had a memorable turn in 1933 as dance hall singer "Trixie" in The BoweryThe Bowery (1933 film)
The Bowery is a 1933 historical film about the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the century. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh and features Wallace Beery as saloon owner Chuck Connors, George Raft as Steve Brodie, the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live, Jackie Cooper...
alongside Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
, George Raft
George Raft
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...
, Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
and Fay Wray
Fay Wray
Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in King Kong...
. Directed by Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...
, the film depicts Steve Brodie, the first man to supposedly jump off the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
and live to brag about it. Kelton sings to a rowdily appreciative crowd in an energetic dive, using a curious New York accent to good comedic effect, with Beery and Raft arguing over her attentions afterward.
As the witty young Minnie in Gregory LaCava's pre-Code comedy Bed of Roses
Bed of Roses (1933 film)
Bed of Roses is a Pre-Code comedy film featuring Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton as a pair of rollickingly wanton prostitutes who occasionally get hapless male pursuers drunk before robbing them, at least until the girls are caught and thrown back into jail...
(1933), she plays a bawdy prostitute (along with Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
) fond of getting admiring men helplessly drunk before robbing them, at least until getting caught and tossed back into jail. Kelton has all the best lines, surprisingly wicked and amusing observations that would never be allowed in an American film after the Hollywood Production Code
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the...
was adopted. The movie remains realistic in terms of the interactions of the characters and features an early turn by Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
as the leading man
Leading man
Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...
, a small boat skipper who pulls Minnie from the river after she dives to escape capture.
Ironically, given her later blacklisting, Kelton's last movie for years was called Whispering Enemies (1939). Her next screen appearance was on television in The Honeymooners and other sketches on the Gleason show. Kelton's abrupt departure due to the blacklist was explained away as a result of "heart problems".
Radio
During the 1940s, she was a familiar radio voice on such programs as Easy AcesEasy Aces
Easy Aces, a long-running American serial radio comedy , was trademarked by the low-keyed drollery of creator and writer Goodman Ace and his wife, Jane, as an urbane, put-upon realtor and his malaprop-prone wife...
, It's Always Albert, The Stu Erwin Show and the 1941 soap opera We Are Always Young. In 1949, she did the voices of five different characters on radio's The Milton Berle Show
Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr...
. She was also a regular cast member of The Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan (comedian)
Henry Morgan was an American humorist. He is remembered best in two modern media: radio, on which he first became familiar as a barbed but often self-deprecating satirist, and on television, where he was a regular and cantankerous panelist for the game show I've Got a Secret...
Show. In the early 1950s, she played the tart maid in the Monty Woolley
Monty Woolley
Monty Woolley was an American stage, film, radio, and television actor. At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his best-known role in the stage play and 1942 film The Man Who Came to Dinner...
vehicle, The Magnificent Montague.
Television
Kelton was the original Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners comedy sketches on the DuMont Television NetworkDuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
's Cavalcade of Stars. These sketches formed the eventual basis for the 1955 CBS sitcom The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
starred as her husband Ralph Kramden, and Art Carney
Art Carney
Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
as their upstairs neighbor Ed Norton. Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
played Trixie, the burlesque dancer wife of Norton, for one sketch before being replaced by Joyce Randolph
Joyce Randolph
Joyce Randolph is an American actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners.-Early life and career:...
.
Kelton appeared in the original sketches, generally running about 10 to 20 minutes, shorter than the later one-season half-hour series and 1960s hour-long musical versions.
In the 1960s, Kelton was invited back to Gleason's CBS show to play Alice's mother in an episode of the hour-long musical version of The Honeymooners (also known as The Color Honeymooners), with Sheila MacRae
Sheila MacRae
Sheila MacRae is an English actress and author. She was born Sheila Margaret Stephens. She appeared in such films as Pretty Baby , Caged , Backfire , and Sex and the Single Girl ....
as a fetching young Alice. By this time, the original age discrepancies were reversed, with Ralph married to a much younger Alice than himself.
In 1963 Kelton appeared on The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
, playing the overbearing mother of Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
in the episode "Miniature
Miniature (The Twilight Zone)
"Miniature" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:Charley Parkes thinks he sees a figure in a museum dollhouse that comes alive.Charley returns to the museum numerous times and gazes into the dollhouse...
."
In her last years, she was strongly identified with Spic and Span
Spic and Span
Spic and Span is a major U.S. brand of all-purpose household cleaner, invented by housewives Elizabeth "Bet" MacDonald and Naomi Stenglein in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1933. The women experimented until they came up with a formula that included equal parts of ground-up glue, sodium carbonate, and...
because of her TV commercials for that product.
Broadway
Kelton made her Broadway debut at age 17 in Jerome KernJerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
's Sunny
Sunny (musical)
Sunny is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. The plot involves Sunny, the star of a circus act, who falls for a rich playboy, but comes in conflict with his snooty family...
. She played "Magnolia" and sang a song of the same name.
Years later, she was twice nominated for Tony Awards: in 1960, as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical) for Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
's Greenwillow
Greenwillow
Greenwillow is a musical with a book by Lesser Samuels and Frank Loesser and music and lyrics by Loesser.Based on the novel by B. J. Chute, the fantasy is set in the magical town of Greenwillow, where the eldest in each generation of Briggs men must obey the "call to wander," while the women they...
and as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for Spofford (1967–68). However, her most memorable Broadway appearance was as the impatient Mrs. Paroo (the mother of Marian Paroo) in Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson
Robert Meredith Willson was an American composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man...
's The Music Man
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...
(1957), which she reprised in the 1962 film adaptation
The Music Man (1962 film)
The Music Man is a 1962 musical film starring Robert Preston as Harold Hill and Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo. The film is based on the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name by Meredith Willson...
, the role for which she is probably best remembered.
Hotel
Pert Kelton was part owner of the Warner Kelton Hotel, built in the late 1920s, at 6326 Lexington Avenue, Los Angeles. The hotel catered to actors and musicians such as Cary GrantCary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, Orry Kelly, and Rogers and Hart. It had a small outdoor theatre at its rear, along with a wishing well that may have inspired the song "There's a Small Hotel" from the musical, "On Your Toes" (1936). It also housed a speakeasy
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
in the basement. A sign above the hotel entrance reads, "Joyously Enter Here".
External links
- Pert Kelton at TVGuide.com
- Kelton Family history