Film career

A chorus girl by age 18, Keyes was put under contract by Cecil B. DeMille. After a handful of B movies at Paramount Pictures, she landed her most notable role, that of Scarlett O'Hara's sister Suellen in Gone with the Wind (1939).Her 1949 role as Kathy Flannigan in Mrs. Mike pushed her to Hollywood stardom. Keyes' last important film role was a small part as Tom Ewell's vacationing wife in The Seven Year Itch (1955), which starred Marilyn Monroe. Keyes officially retired in 1956, but continued to act.

 Personal life

She was married to Barton Bainbridge from 1938 until his death in 1940. Later she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), actor/director John Huston (23 July 1946–February 1950), and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985). Keyes said of her many relationships, "I was always interested in the man of the moment, and there were many such moments". While married to Huston, the couple adopted a Mexican child, Pablo, whom Huston had discovered while on the set of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Her autobiography, Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life in and Out of Hollywood, was published in 1977. Keyes expressed her opinion that Mrs. Mike was her best film. She also wrote of the personal cost she paid by having an abortion just before Gone with the Wind was to begin filming. The experience left her unable to have children.

In 2005, Keyes sued Artie Shaw's estate, claiming that she was entitled to one-half of Shaw's estate pursuant to a contract to make a will between them. In July 2006, a Ventura, California jury unanimously held that Keyes was entitled to almost one-half of Shaw's estate, or $1,420,000.

She died of uterine cancer on July 4, 2008 at her home in Montecito, California, near Santa Barbara.She had also suffered from Alzheimer's disease.