THE audience at Glasgow’s Empire Theatre was in a cheerful and obliging mood in September 1954 when the American actor and singer Howard Keel forgot the words to his songs, not once, not twice, but three times.

“With such a handsome big laddie on the stage, working so hard and trying to please, what did his Glasgow audience do but sing the elusive words to help him out?”, observed the Evening Times. “The more he forgot the louder they sang, and the more they clapped and cheered to cover his embarrassment. Twice the words of ‘Annie Laurie’ eluded him, but his blushes soon turned to smiles as his audience showed that they didn’t mind a bit.

“Keel’s pleasant stage personality proves the good impression gained from his films. He and his pretty partner, Angel Marlo [main image], delighted with an item from the screen version of ‘Kiss Me, Kate’, and there was a long list of other songs which the singer made famous in ‘Annie Get Your Gun’, ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Carousel’. Here is an American star who never once gives the impression that he adores the sight and sound of himself. The pity of it is that we cannot keep him on this side of the Atlantic for very long”.

Keel was back in Glasgow in April 1956 and his lifelong love of golf provided an opportunity for photographers (above). He had, the Evening Times said, the Empire audience “completely in his pocket by the time he concluded a well-balanced programme with the greatest love song of them all, ‘Annie Laurie’.

“...His reminiscences of ‘there’s no business like show business’ was particularly well done, the setting being a darkened, after-the-show, backstage effect with small spotlights picking out the star as he moved around among the props singing some of the hit songs from his films. Nice singing, nice showmanship, Howard”.

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