Modern Screen (Jan-Nov 1951)

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IT — IK_ _JH_oward Keel entered the studio commissary with an intriguing creature just as high as his heart. Snow white hair crowned her merry, unwrinkled face. Her step was as spry, her smile as infectious as a childis. She looked adoringly at Howard as, arm around her, he led her into the room. Every head in the place turned and there was a buzz. "Who's that wonderful looking woman with Howard Keel?" One savvy reporter said, "I don't know, and I'm not likely to find out if she really means anything to Keel. That guy wouldn't tell you the time of day if it had anything to do with his private life." He continued with the bitterness of a guy who's been gypped out of his daily bread. "Personally, I think all his. clamming up about 'personal business' is just a pose. He's going after glamor the way Garbo did." An interesting theory if true. But the newsman was dead wrong. The truth is that Howard Keel just doesn't like anyone prying into his private life. The newsman was wTong twice. He should have asked Howard about the little lady on his arm. She was the star attraction of the MGM lot that day, and usually silent Howard just couldn't say enough about her. "That's my grandmother, Matilda Osterkamp. Isn't she something? Eighty-six years old and just made her first airplane trip to visit me. She's taken to Hollywood like a real old-timer." He went on to teU of her conquest of Hollywood. How she'd gone into business, crocheting and embroidering things and what's more, finding customers for what she makes. Howard says, "It makes no difference that I'm here, and more than able to provide for her needs. She's not dependent on me to get around, either. She just hops on a bus and off she goes." Grandma Osterkamp gave a hint of Howard Keel's attitude toward personal pubHcity when she told his mother, "Howard's important now, so we've got to be mighty careful what we say even on the telephone. Maybe folks would misunderstand and reflect it unfavorably on him." And Howard's endless, joyous stories about his grandmother tell more about his past than perhaps even he intends. For out of them one can patch together the story of his personal history. And can even peep behind the wall of secrecy he's built around his home in Brentwood. "Grandma gave us one of those wonderful old kerosene lamps that hang by chains from the ceiling," he tells. "Grandpa gave it to her 33 years ago. {Continued on next page) Modern Screen's reporter ferrets out the story of Hollywood's most phenomenal mystery man — the star-rocketing Howard Keel. BY FRANCES CLARK KEEL'S INCREDIBLE RISE TO STARDOM in two short years has included roles in Annie Get Your Gim wi+h Be+fy Huf+on, (top) and Show Boat with Avo Gardner — two of the most lavish musical productions Hollywood has ever known. ^ 'i I [.