Keane, Doris

(1881-1945)

   Born Dora Keane in St. Joseph's, Michigan, she was the daughter of actors and performed as Little Dora from age two. After training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she made her New York professional debut in 1903 as Rose in Whitewashing Julia. Among her many roles on Broadway and in London, she was most identified with that of Margherita Cavallini in Edward Sheldon's Romance (1913), which made her a star and followed its New York success with a record-breaking run of 1,049 performances in London; she also performed in the 1921 New York revival. In 1918, she married Basil Sydney, her leading man in Romance, but they divorced in 1926. Keane's second-greatest role, Catherine the Great in The Czarina (1922), was also written for her by Sheldon, with whom she had once had a romantic relationship. She retired after her 1929 performance in The Pirate at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles.