Don Keefer
Birthday:
Birthplace:
Not Available
Pennsylvania-born actor Don Keefer enjoyed a 60-year-plus career on stage and screen that saw him range freely across character parts and leading roles in both fields. An actor from his youth, he started early playing leads, portraying the title role in The Adventures of Marco Polo for a production of the Child Study Association. He won the Clarence Derwent Award for his early work on Broadway, and spent his early career working alongside the likes of Ethel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, and José Ferrer, and under such directors as Moss Hart, Elia Kazan, and Margaret Webster (including the famed production of Othello starring Paul Robeson). Keefer was a charter member of the Actors' Studio, and originated the role of Bernard, the studious neighbor son-turned-lawyer in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He was the only actor to remain with the production for its entire Broadway run, and subsequently made his screen debut in 1951 in the movie adaptation of the play produced by Stanley Kramer and directed by Laslo Benedek. From that beginning, he went on to appear in more than 130 movie and television productions, in between theatrical work on both coasts (including a stint at the Theatre Group at UCLA under John Houseman). Highlights of his stage career include a highly acclaimed touring production of Anton Chekhov: The Human Comedy, focusing on the lighter side of Chekhov's work. On screen as on stage, Keefer played a wide variety of parts -- he made a fine villain-turned-neutral in "Winchester Quarantine," an early (and very powerful) episode of Have Gun Will Travel, but was equally good as Ensign Twitchell, the comically (yet tragically) over-eager and officious junior officer in Joseph Pevney's Away All Boats, during this same period. Don Keefer was still working in the late '90s, in movies such as Liar Liar and an episode of Profiler. But amid hundreds of portrayals, Keefer's single most memorable role for most viewers -- other than Bernard in Death of a Salesman -- is almost certainly that of Dan Hollis, the doomed neighbor whose birthday celebration comes to a hideous end (his head popping out of a giant jack-in-the-box) in the 1961 Twilight Zone show "It's a Good Life."
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
82% | Liar Liar |
|
— | 1997 |
10% | The Marrying Man |
|
— | 1991 |
No Score Yet | Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter |
|
— | 1991 |
No Score Yet | Amos |
|
— | 1985 |
No Score Yet | Who Will Love My Children? |
|
— | 1983 |
74% | Creepshow |
|
— | 1982 |
No Score Yet | The Kid from Not-So-Big |
|
— | 1981 |
No Score Yet | Mirrors |
|
— | 1978 |
57% | The Incredible Hulk |
|
— | 1977 |
No Score Yet | Fire Sale |
|
— | 1977 |
28% | The Car |
|
— | 1977 |
100% | Sleeper |
|
— | 1973 |
64% | The Way We Were |
|
— | 1973 |
No Score Yet | The Young Nurses |
|
— | 1973 |
75% | Walking Tall |
|
— | 1973 |
46% | The Grissom Gang |
|
— | 1971 |
No Score Yet | R.P.M. |
|
— | 1970 |
No Score Yet | Rabbit, Run |
|
— | 1970 |
88% | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
|
— | 1969 |
86% | The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming |
|
— | 1966 |
No Score Yet | The Last Of The Secret Agents? |
|
— | 1966 |
No Score Yet | Incident In An Alley |
|
— | 1962 |
No Score Yet | The Clown And The Kid |
|
— | 1961 |
No Score Yet | Torpedo Run |
|
— | 1958 |
No Score Yet | Hellcats of the Navy |
|
— | 1957 |
No Score Yet | Away All Boats |
|
— | 1956 |
No Score Yet | An Annapolis Story |
|
— | 1955 |
No Score Yet | Six Bridges to Cross |
|
— | 1955 |
92% | The Caine Mutiny |
|
— | 1954 |
100% | Riot in Cell Block 11 |
|
— | 1954 |
No Score Yet | The Human Jungle |
|
— | 1954 |
No Score Yet | Death of a Salesman |
|
— | 1951 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
86% |
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
1993-1997
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Profiler
1996-2000
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
ER
1994-2009
|
|
|
82% |
Picket Fences
1992-1996
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Highway to Heaven
1984-1989
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Quincy, M.E.
1976-1983
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Incredible Hulk
1978-1982
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Waltons
1972-1981
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Streets of San Francisco
1972-1977
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Gunsmoke
1955-1975
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Marcus Welby, M.D.
1969-1976
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Night Gallery
1970-1973
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Bonanza
1959-1973
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Bewitched
1964-1972
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Green Acres
1965-1971
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The High Chaparral
1967-1971
|
|
|
80% |
Star Trek
1966-1969
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Andy Griffith Show
1960-1968
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Mission: Impossible
1966-1973
|
|
|
83% |
The Munsters
1964-1966
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Fugitive
1963-1967
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
My Favorite Martian
1963-1966
|
|
|
82% |
The Twilight Zone
1959-1964
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1955-1962
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Father Knows Best
1954-1960
|
|
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Quotes from Don Keefer's Characters
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