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Pert Kelton | |
|---|---|
 Kelton in 1942 | |
| Born | (1907-10-14)October 14, 1907 Great Falls, Montana, U.S. |
| Died | October 30, 1968(1968-10-30) (aged 61) Ridgewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1925 (professionally) –1968 |
| Spouse | Ralph Bell (19??-1968; her death) |
| Children | 2 |
Pert L. Kelton (October 14, 1907[1] – October 30, 1968) was an American stage, movie, radio, and television actress.[2] She was the originalAlice Kramden inThe Honeymooners withJackie Gleason. During the 1930s, she was a prominentcomedic supporting and leading actress inHollywood films such asGregory La Cava'sBed of Roses withConstance Bennett andRaoul Walsh'sThe Bowery withWallace Beery andGeorge Raft (both released in 1933). She performed in a dozen Broadway productions between 1925 and 1968. She is probably best-known for creating the role of Mrs. Paroo in the original 1957 Broadway production of the musicalThe Music Man, which she reprised in the1962 movie adaptation. In the early 1950s, her career was interrupted as a result ofHollywood blacklisting,[3][4] leading to her departure fromThe Honeymooners.
Pert L. Kelton was born in 1907 in Great Falls, Montana. Her mother, Sue Kelton, was a native of Canada; her father, Edward Kelton, a native of California.[5][6]
Kelton was reportedly named by her aunt, who suggested the name "Pert" to her mother after her favorite theatrical role, the character "Pert Barlow" in a play calledCheckers.[7]
In 1910, while accompanying her parents and sister on an overseas tour of shows, she debuted on stage at the age of three inCape Town,Union of South Africa.[8][9][10]
Upon her return to the United States with her family, Kelton was enrolled in private schools for her early formal education and for extensive training in dance, voice, and drama. By age 12, after appearing for a while with her parents as "The Three Keltons", she began appearing as a solo act or "single" in vaudeville; and by age 17 she was performing on Broadway, initially as a cast member inJerome Kern's 1925 musical comedySunny, starringMarilyn Miller.[10][11]
Kelton and her parents had moved to California to work in Hollywood films by the latter half of 1927.[10] Her first credited movie role there was as Rosie inFirst National Pictures' 1929 releaseSally, based on the Broadway hit by the same name. Thefederal census of 1930 showed that Kelton was living in Los Angeles at the Warner-Kelton Hotel[6] – later called theHotel Brevoort (and Tropical Gardens) – sharing room 666.[12][13][14] That same census identifies all three of the Keltons as employed actors in "motion pictures".[6]
Kelton was a young comedienne in A-list movies during the 1930s, often portraying the leading lady's wisecracking friend. She had a memorable turn in 1933 as dance hall singer "Trixie" inThe Bowery alongsideWallace Beery,George Raft,Jackie Cooper, andFay Wray. Directed byRaoul Walsh, the film is based on the story ofSteve Brodie, the first man who reportedly jumped off theBrooklyn Bridge in 1886 and lived to brag about it. Kelton at one point in the film sings to a rowdy, appreciative crowd in an energeticdive, using a curious New York accent to good comedic effect, with Beery and Raft arguing afterwards over her attentions.
InGregory LaCava's 1933 pre-Code comedyBed of Roses, Kelton plays Minnie, a witty prostitute who is a partner in crime with Lorry, portrayed byConstance Bennett. The two women in the plot are fond of getting admiring men helplessly drunk before robbing them, at least until getting caught and tossed into jail. Kelton has all the best lines, surprisingly wicked and amusing observations that would never be allowed in an American film after the HollywoodProduction Code was adopted. Nevertheless, in 1933 her performance inBed of Roses was widely praised by critics in leading newspapers andtrade papers.[15][16][17]
Kelton for the remainder of the 1930s performed in over 20 more feature films andshorts.[18] After her appearance in the 1939 filmWhispering Enemies, she redirected her career, returning again to theatre and to performing increasingly on radio and later on the rapidly expanding medium of television. She did not return to the "big screen" until 1962, when she was cast as Mrs. Paroo inThe Music Man.
By April 1940, Pert had left California and was living in New York City again, sharing a $65-per-month apartment in Manhattan on West 55th Street with three other women, two of whom were employed as dancers in the theatre and the third as a secretary.[19] A federal census taker canvassing Manhattan that year concisely identified Kelton in hisenumeration ledger as "Actress, Theatre & Movies" and recorded her given age as only 28, although in the spring of 1940 Kelton was actually 32 years old.[19] If not a mistake in documentation, it is possible that Kelton herself, feeling the pressures to maintain a youthful profile within the image-conscious realm of entertainment, "shaved" a few years off her age when answering census questions at that time. Her documented lack of consistent employment during the previous year may be indicative too of the professional pressures she was experiencing after her film career in Hollywood began to wane in the late 1930s. According to the United States Census of 1940, Kelton was employed for only six weeks during the entire year of 1939, a total time of employment far less than the weeks worked by her roommates over the same period.[19]
Once Kelton had resettled in New York during the early 1940s, she began to work in theatre again, and she became a familiar voice on radio as well, performing on programs such asEasy Aces,It's Always Albert,The Stu Erwin Show, and on the 1941 soap operaWe Are Always Young. Later, In 1949, she did the voices of five different radio characters onThe Milton Berle Show. She was also a regular cast member ofTheHenry Morgan Show; and in the early 1950s, she performed the role of the tart maid Agnes in theMonty Woolley vehicleThe Magnificent Montague, along with reprising her Berle show role of Martha Harrison, who never said anything but "Yeeessss!"
Kelton appeared inHenry Morgan's Great Talent Hunt, first aired January 26, 1951, hosted byHenry Morgan, and withKaye Ballard,Art Carney, andArnold Stang.
Kelton was the original Alice Kramden inThe Honeymooners comedy sketches on theDuMont Television Network'sCavalcade of Stars. These sketches formed the eventual basis for the 1955 sitcomThe 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 byJoyce Randolph.
Kelton appeared in the original sketches, generally running about 10 to 20 minutes, shorter than the later one-season half-hour series episodes and 1960s hour-long musical versions. However, she was abruptly dropped from her role due to beingblacklisted and was replaced byAudrey Meadows. Rather than acknowledge that she was blacklisted, her producers explained that her departure was based on alleged heart problems. Kelton and her husband had been listed inRed Channels, an early 1950s publication of alleged communists orfellow travelers in the U.S. entertainment industry. Kelton sued the publication for libel, but later dropped the suit.[20] In his bookThe Forgotten Network, David Weinstein wrote Kelton remained onCavalcade of Stars through the final season of the series (1951–1952), and suggests that it may have been because Jackie Gleason had resisted attempts at having her dropped.
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 ofThe Honeymooners (also known asThe Color Honeymooners), withSheila MacRae as a fetching young Alice.
In 1963, Kelton appeared onThe Twilight Zone, playing the overbearing mother ofRobert Duvall in the episode "Miniature." The next year she guest-starred on the popular family sitcomMy Three Sons. In this episode "Stage Door Bub", Kelton portrays Thelma Wilson, a veteran itinerant stage actress who longs for a settled domestic life but soon realizes that that lifestyle is actually ill-suited for her personality.
In her last years, Kelton was strongly identified withSpic and Span because of commercials for the product.[citation needed]
Pert Kelton was part owner of the Warner-Kelton Hotel, built in the late 1920s, at 6326 Lexington Avenue in Los Angeles. Kelton and her parents resided in the hotel during the late 1920s until at least 1930.[6] (A February 20, 1928, article in theStandard-Examiner (Ogden, Utah) incorrectly identifies the hotel as the Walton-Kelton Hotel.)[10] The hotel catered to actors, poets, and musicians, such asCary Grant,Orry Kelly,Rodgers and Hart,Monroe Salisbury,Sadakichi Hartmann, and later,Elizabeth Short.[21] The building had a small outdoor theater, in a garden to the south, with a wishing well that may have inspired the song "There's a Small Hotel" from the musicalOn Your Toes (1936). It also housed aspeakeasy in the basement. A sign above the hotel entrance reads "Joyously Enter Here". It was later the home of the California Television Society.[22][23][24]
When away from rehearsing and performing, Kelton enjoyed art as a pastime and became a "passionate" painter.[25] She was married to actor-director Ralph S. Bell, with whom she had two sons, Brian and Stephen.[25]
A resident ofWashington Township, Bergen County, New Jersey, Kelton died of a heart attack on October 30, 1968, at age 61 while swimming at the YMHA in Ridgewood, New Jersey.[4]
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