Dennis O'Keefe (March 29 1908 - August 31, 1968) was an American actor. Born Edward Flanagan ("Bud"), he was the son of Irish vaudevillians working in the United States. As a small child he joined his parents' act, and later wrote skits for the stage.
O'Keefe started in films as an extra in the early 1930s, and appeared in numerous films under the name Bud Flanagan. After a small but impressive role in Saratoga (1937), Clark Gable recommended O'Keefe to MGM; he signed with them in 1937 and was renamed Dennis O'Keefe. His film roles were bigger after that, starting with The Bad Man of Brimstone (1938), and the lead role in Burn 'Em Up O'Connor (1939).
O'Keefe left MGM around 1940, but continued to work in mostly lower budget productions. He often played the tough guy in action and crime dramas like Lady Scarface (1941), The Leopard Man (1943), The Fighting Seabees (1944), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), T-Men (1947), and Raw Deal (1948). He gave excellent performances in comedies...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 02/07/08 at 08:18 PM
Dennis O'Keefe has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
Dennis O'Keefe died
Woman on the Run is a 1950 black-and-white film noir directed by Norman Foster.As the film opens, a man, Frank Johnson, is walking his dog in the city at night. He witnesses a man talking about a crime in a car and then gets shot. Johnson is seen and shot at by the man in the car but he misses. The killer flees in the car. It turns out the shooting victim was going to testify in a court case against a gangster and now the cops, now with a dead witness, want Johnson to testify. Johnson, at the scene of the crime with police, goes into hiding possibly to escape from possible retaliation from the mob. His wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. With the help of a newspaperman (O'Keefe), Eleanor sets out to locate her missing husband while the police and the apparent killer keeps tabs on her.The film was shot on location in San Francisco and at Pacific Ocean Park, Santa Monica, California during the amusement park roller coaster...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043142
Cover Up is a 1949 black-and-white mystery film written by and starring Dennis O'Keefe. O'Keefe is credited as screenwriter Jonathan Rix. The murder mystery takes place during the Christmas season.In a small Midwestern town a man is found dead. Dennis O'Keefe plays an insurance investigator looking into the apparent suicide. All clues leads him into suspecting murder. Unfortunately, no one wants to assist him with the case, including Sheriff Larry Best (Bendix). Finally, attractive local girl Anita (Britton) breaks the silence and helps investigator Donovan solve the case....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041263
Raw Deal is a 1948 film noir directed by Anthony Mann and with cinematography by John Alton.Prisoner Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe), framed by his associates, vows revenge when he is released. Unable to wait, he breaks jail with the help of his girl, Pat (Claire Trevor). Joe escapes and comes looking for mobster Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr). Coyle has arranged for Joe to be killed during the break-out in order to avoid confronting him. The failure of this scheme plunges Rick into a state of incipient terror. He now must have Joe done in some other way, by somebody else.In the course of their run, Pat and Joe kidnap a social worker, Ann (Marsha Hunt) who has been visiting Joe in prison, trying to reform him. This begins a doomed film noir love triangle. A fight with a vicious thug ends when Joe convinces Ann to shoot his attacker in the back. After this act of murder, Ann decides she is in love with Joe. Relenting, he sends her away and goes to kill Coyle, the man who was a key factor in...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040723
T-Men is a 1947 semidocumentary style film noir shot in black and white. The film was directed by Anthony Mann with cinematography by noted noir cameraman John Alton.
The B-movie is featured in Visions Of Light: The Art Of Cinematography (1992) documentary.
A year later, director Mann used the film's male lead, Dennis O'Keefe, in Raw Deal.
The film was remade in 1969, as The File of The Golden Goose, directed by Sam Wanamaker and starring Yul Brynner and Edward Woodward and this time set in England (London) instead of the USA.
The story is about two U.S. Treasury agents who go undercover in an attempt to break a counterfeiting ring.
The agents try to join the gang by posing as counterfeiters from out of town. They eventually join the gang but the stakes are set even higher when one of the agents is killed by the gang while the other undercover T-man watches in horror.
...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039881
The Fighting Seabees is a 1944 war film starring John Wayne, Dennis O'Keefe and Susan Hayward. It portrays the fictitious origin of the U.S. Navy's "Seabees" in World War II.
Wedge Donovan (John Wayne) is a tough construction boss, building airstrips in the Pacific for the navy during World War II. He clashes with his liaison officer, Lieutenant Commander Robert Yarrow (Dennis O'Keefe), over the fact that his men are not allowed to arm themselves against the Japanese. When the enemy lands in force on the island, he finally takes matters into his own hands, leading his men into the fray. Unfortunately, this prevents Yarrow from springing a carefully-devised trap that would have wiped out the invaders in a murderous crossfire, with minimal American losses. Instead, many of Donovan's men are killed unnecessarily.
As a result of this tragedy, Yarrow finally convinces the Navy to form Construction Battalions (CB's, or the more familiar "Seabees") with Donovan's assistance, despite their...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036824
The Leopard Man is a 1943 horror movie directed by Jacques Tourneur based on the book "Black Alibi" by Cornell Woolrich. The film is one of the first few American movies to attempt even a remotely realistic portrayal of a serial killer (although that term wasn't in use at the time).The story, set in New Mexico, begins as Jerry Manning hires a leopard as a publicity stunt for his night-club performing girlfriend, Kiki. Her rival at the club, Clo-Clo, not wanting to be upstaged, startles the animal and it escapes the club into the dark night. Soon people are being found mauled to death. Manning and his girlfriend, guilty about the monster they unleashed, try to help hunt down the giant cat. A particularly haunting scene involves a young girl who, on returning from an errand to a local store for corn meal, is mauled by the cat after her mother won't let her in the house. Upon hearing the screams, the mother clamors to open the door as dark blood seeps under the door.
The film was...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036104
Dennis O'Keefe was born
Update Sources