Robert Keith Movies and Career Information

Robert Keith (February 10, 1898 – December 22, 1966) was an American stage and film actor who appeared in several dozen films, mostly in the 1950s as a character actor. He is noted for his performance as the weak-willed father in Fourteen Hours (1951), as a tough cop in Guys and Dolls (1955), and his performance in the 1953 film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, in which he played the ineffectual sheriff and father of Brando's love interest. Keith also had a starring role in Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind. He had roles on television, including a role as Richard Kimble's father in The Fugitive and lead roles on episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Ten O'Clock Tiger") and The Twilight Zone ("The Masks"). Keith was born Rolland Keith Richey in Fowler, Indiana, the son of Mary Della (née Snyder) and James Haughey Richey. His first wife was Laura Anne Corinne Jackson, the daughter of a prominent Cedar Rapids, Iowa family. Keith's second wife was stage actress Helena Shipman, with whom he had a son in 1921, actor Brian Keith who starred in many Disney movies and in the TV show Family Affair. On April 18, 1927 Keith married Peg Entwistle. They were divorced in 1929. He remained