TMS Muse of the Week: Slim Keith
(Horst P. Horst)
To many movie fans, the quintessential film noir femme fatale is Lauren Bacall; most fittingly referred as having ‘The Look’ when she posed for various photoshoots. Casual old Hollywood fanatics will recall Lauren [or Betty, as she preferred off camera] was discovered appearing on a famous 1943 cover of Harper’s Bazaar Magazine before she was quickly cast as the female lead in Howard Hawks’ noir-adventure To Have and Have Not (1944). But some might not be aware Betty’s whole fatale persona was actually heavily borrowed from Hawks’ second and most famous wife, Nancy [née Mary Raye Gross, mostly known as ‘Slim’ Keith]. In fact, it was Slim who first saw that Bazaar cover and personally suggested to her husband that he screen test the young model for his next picture. And the rest as they say, is history—and very interesting history.
A woman of many names and stages of life, Mary/Nancy/Slim was born and raised in Monterey County, CA in the late 1910s to early 1930s; before heading out to Death Valley in 1933/34. A hotspot for celebrities of the golden age, Slim caught the attention of MGM movie star William Powell while lounging around the Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort [now known as The Oasis]. Not long after meeting, Bill introduced Slim to her closest Hollywood buddy, model-turned-actress and fellow muse Marion Davies. Through Marion and her infamous lover, W.R. Hearst, Slim went from local California girl, to the talk of Tinseltown as she was making a name for herself as a socialite, model, designer and even sought after by A-listers like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. By the time she was 21 in 1938, Slim met Howard which was allegedly attraction at first sight. Though it wasn’t an ideal courtship—as the filmmaker was already in a troubled marriage with MGM queen Norma Shearer’s older sister, Athole—the new pair were married by 1941 after Howard & Athole’s divorce, and Slim would go on to be the film legend’s most influential and enduring muse. Following To Have and Have Not, her style and features of smoky voice, glamorous dresses, feminine suits, and voluminous blonde hair can also be seen through Lauren/Betty in Howard’s next noir, The Big Sleep (1946). Despite producing a daughter, Kitty, in 1946, Slim & Howard’s relationship was not much better than his previous marriage, and the midwestern writer-director continued to have a wandering eye; including on 19-year-old Lauren/Betty, who was too busy being wooed by her co-star and future husband Humphrey Bogart.
(via therake.com)
Ultimately divorcing in 1949, Slim’s fascinating love life continued after her years as Mrs. Hawks. The former it girl participated in a brief fling with original To Have and Have Not author Ernest Hemingway before becoming involved with soon-to-be second husband, equally legendary Hollywood and Broadway producer Leland Hayward. Although she’s most remembered for her association with Howard, Slim actually considered Leland the big love of her life, even though he ended up leaving her for Pamela Churchill [Winston’s former daughter-in-law] in 1960. Third time was almost the charm when Slim’s last marriage was to high class English banker and Baron of Castleacre, Kenneth Keith from 1962 to 1972.
If you’re not a film afficionado, you might actually have still heard of Slim. Throughout the 1940s, she was regularly included in ‘best dressed’ listicles featured in iconic fashion magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair. And literature fans may know for a period in the 1960s, Slim was acquainted with famed writer Truman Capote; who also used the former model’s persona as one of his inspirations for the character of ‘Lady Coolbirth’ in his unfinished, posthumous 1986 novel Answered Prayers [originally written in 1967]. Slim instantly disowned her connection to Capote when she discovered she was the basis for a semi-unflattering character. After her death in 1990, Mrs. Keith was portrayed by Hope Davis in Douglas McGrath’s Capote biopic Infamous (2006) and is included as a character in Melanie Benjamin’s 2016 historical fiction novel The Swans of Fifth Avenue. You can even hear Slim referenced as ‘Slim Hayward’ in a line of dialogue of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Rear Window (1954).
In my opinion, Slim’s life would be a great subject for a biopic, since she pretty much had it all. Wife, mother, fashion icon, muse and a woman of the world who lived in major locations like Hollywood, Manhattan, London and Havana. From the Monterey harbor to Malibu beach, Slim ran the gamut from A to Z.