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1-4 of 4
- Actress
- Soundtrack
In a situation that closely recalls the Fannie Hurst story "Imitation of Life" in which a girl strives to pass for white, beautiful light-skinned African-American actress/singer/dancer/bandleader Dona (pronounced "dough-nuh") Drake, for the sake of her career, denied her heritage and passed for white (in her case Mexican) for the duration of it. While it did not make her a true star, her zesty talents and charm went a long way in the field of war-time music. Unlike the story, Dona, however, did not abandon her parents or deny her parentage.
Dona was born Eunice (nicknamed "Una") Westmoreland in Jacksonville (some references say Miami), Florida, on November 15, 1914, of African-American parents (Joseph Andrew Westmoreland and Novella Smith Westmoreland). A gifted child musically, her father moved his family and later opened a restaurant in Philadelphia. Five year old Eunice started to perform and play musical instruments there as entertainment. Following schooling, she moved to the Big Apple where (billed as Una Villon) she caught the fetching eye of Broadway and nightclub talent ("Murder at the Vanities" (1930)) and worked as various chorines on stage, nightclubs and Earl Carroll revues. Claiming she was Latino, she even went so far as to learn Spanish.
In 1935 Dona changed her name to Rita Rio to emphasize her "ethnicity" and spiced up her image even further when she earned a featured spot in Eddie Cantor's film Strike Me Pink (1936). While it did not lead to more film work, it did enable her to form her own glitzy and glamorous all-girl band, Rita Rio and Her Rhythm Girls [aka The Girlfriends], which toured successfully.
On her own, Dona did a few short films and two-reelers, sang on the airwaves and revved up her image signing on radio. Good friend Dorothy Lamour assisted in getting her signed up to Paramount, where the studio changed her name to "Dona Drake" and built up her Latino background by sending out studio resumes that she was christened Rita Novella, was of Mexican, Irish and French descent and born and raised in Mexico City. Dona's first picture for the studio was in the Dorothy Lamour vehicle Aloma of the South Seas (1941). She then pepped up the Bob Hope starrer Louisiana Purchase (1941) as well as an Arab girl in the Hope/Crosby/Lamour comedy Road to Morocco (1942). Unable to break out of her typecasting as a spicy singing support, her contract was dropped after a sparkling big band singing lead loanout to Monogram entitled Hot Rhythm (1944). Around this time she married the Oscar- and Emmy-winning costume designer William Travilla.
Dona freelanced in Without Reservations (1946), co-starred with Kent Taylor in Dangerous Millions (1946) and was featured in Another Part of the Forest (1948) (as a girlfriend to weaselly Dan Duryea), Beyond the Forest (1949) (as Bette Davis' Indian maid), The Girl from Jones Beach (1949) (as Eddie Bracken's paramour) and as the gold-digging second lead in So This Is New York (1948). After her marriage and a daughter, Nia Novella, was born, she toned down her filmmaking but returned in the mid-1950s to some film and TV parts before retiring in 1957 due to health and emotional issues (heart ailment, seizures/epilepsy). She and Travilla separated in 1956, but never divorced and still appeared together at functions on occasion. Dona died of pneumonia and respiratory failure in 1989 with Travilla dying one year later.- Phyllis Barrington was born on 7 February 1904 in Ogden, Utah, USA. She was an actress, known for The Law of the Tong (1931), Sinister Hands (1932) and Playthings of Hollywood (1930). She was married to Anthony Lloyd and Harry Simms. She died on 20 June 1989 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Sound Department
B. Wayne Keeton was a mystery character his entire life that few people knew about. Very little information exists on his personal life aside that he was born as Robert Wayne Keeton in rural Louisiana. He grew up in extreme poverty and was raised by his mother and grandmother after being abandoned by his father. He received little formal education and once claimed that his older 17-year-old brother killed himself on Christmas day when Keeton was age 13. When Keeton was age 15 or 16, he came out as a homosexual to his family who supposedly reacted by throwing him out of their house and onto the street.
Keeton then drifted around the Deep South and made a living as a hustler, pickpocket, thief and con artist. For a time in the late 1970s he lived in Houston, Texas, and was a regular at Mary's--a well-known leather dive hangout for gay men--before migrating west to Los Angeles, where he worked at odd jobs which included a restaurant waiter, cashier, construction worker, LA Metro bus driver, taxi driver, etc.
At one point in 1985, Keeton met exploitation film director and playwright Andy Milligan while Keeton was working as a dishwasher in a seedy eatery in the San Fernando Valley. Milligan recruited him as a crew member and actor for his new film company, Troupe West. Keeton moved in with Milligan and the two soon became lovers. Keeton had a bit part as a drug dealer killed in Milligan's film Monstrosity (1987) He would also work on the set manning the slate, the sound recorder, and even buy food for the cast and crew.
Keeton was also said to have continued his hustling lifestyle during the time he was with Milligan. He received a disability check from the state for $650 a month for an injury he suffered while working at a construction site in the early 1980s, and would spend it all in three or four days on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes or a combination of all three. He continued to drift in and out of jail on minor offenses from drunk and disorderly, to solicitation, to possession of narcotics. Sometimes Milligan bailed him out of jail and sometimes he didn't, but every time Keeton would come back to him.
Keeton was diagnosed with AIDS sometime in 1988, as he was seen taking a bus to and from a Los Angeles hospital during the filming of Milligan's last film, Surgikill (1989). In December of that year he traveled to his hometown in Louisiana for Christmas to meet and say goodbye to what family he had living there. He returned a few days after New Years Day in 1989, claiming that his illness made him a pariah and no one in his family wanted to be near him. Although he was nearly illiterate his whole life, he turned to his Baptist roots and began attending church as well as trying to read the Bible. He was said to have purchased stuffed toy animals during his final months as he traveled to the hospital for treatment.
B. Wayne Keeton died on June 20, 1989 at an AIDS treatment hospital in Los Angeles.- Kató Bárczy was born on 24 January 1921 in Opatija, Croatia. She was an actress, known for Sutyi, the Lucky Child (1937), A papucshös (1938) and A tanítónö (1945). She was married to Sándor Szabó. She died on 20 June 1989 in Budapest, Hungary.