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Geoffrey Keen
Life Time
21 August 1916 - 3 November 2005
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Jeffrey Keane was born on August 21, 1916 in Wallingford, Surrey. His father was the famous theater actor Malcolm Keane, famous for his performance of Shakespearean roles. The parents separated before his birth, and the upbringing of the children took over the mother. Keane spent his childhood in Bristol, where he graduated from high school. At the age of sixteen, he made his debut in Sheridan’s School of Backbiting at the local Small Repertory Theatre. He subsequently enrolled at the London School
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Jeffrey Keane was born on August 21, 1916 in Wallingford, Surrey. His father was the famous theater actor Malcolm Keane, famous for his performance of Shakespearean roles. The parents separated before his birth, and the upbringing of the children took over the mother. Keane spent his childhood in Bristol, where he graduated from high school. At the age of sixteen, he made his debut in Sheridan’s School of Backbiting at the local Small Repertory Theatre. He subsequently enrolled at the London School of Economics, but received a scholarship, transferred to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and soon began a career as a professional actor. His first notable role was Florizel in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" on the stage of the Old Vic theater, and at the age of twenty he played Edgar in "King Lear".
Already being an actor of the Royal Shakespeare troupe, at the beginning of the war he would have been drafted into the army and for six years served in the medical corps in the rank of corporal. During the war, he was part of the cast of Stars in Military Uniform and in 1943 appeared as an army instructor in the short film New Destiny, commissioned by the Ministry of Information by the famous director Carol Reed. It was with Carol Reed that his early steps in cinema were associated: in the postwar years, Keane flashed in small roles in his films “Discarded” (1947), “The Idol Defeated” (1948) and “The Third Man” (1949). Soon he began to be trusted with more prominent roles, such as agitator Harry Bolger in the drama from the life of factory workers “The Chance of a Life” (1950, dir. Bernard Miles and Alan Osbigton). Later, he appeared in a huge number of films, playing a variety of characters, but mainly specialized in overbearing, authoritarian types, cold-blooded and arrogant. At the same time, the range of his roles was quite wide - from Professor Kurt in the famous film adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" (1965, dir. David Lin) to the Minister of Defense, the gallant Sir Frederick Gray in a series of films about the adventures of superagent James Bond. Despite his strong film career, he continued to play in London’s West End. In the early sixties, he took part in Broadway productions of Terence Rattigan's plays Ross (1961-1962) and Man and Boy (1963). One of his most famous television roles was oil company chairman Brian Steed on the TV series Troubleshooters (1965-1972). The actor continued to act until the mid-eighties, and his last picture was the next Bond film Sparks from the Eyes (1987, John Glen). After he was seventy, Keane retired and spent the last years of his life in Surrey, living in the care of his second wife and daughter from his third marriage.
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