Ruby Keeler, 83; Was Actress, Dancer In Warner Bros. Musicals Of The '30S

LOS ANGELES - Ruby Keeler, the winsome dancer who tapped her way through a string of glittering Warner Bros. musicals in the 1930s, died yesterday. She was 83.

She died at 12:40 a.m. at her home in Rancho Mirage, said her son, John Lowe. She had suffered from cancer, he said.

Miss Keeler made her film debut in the 1933 hit "42nd Street," in which she played a chorus girl who went onstage for the ailing star with the prediction by director Warner Baxter: "You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star." The story was later made into a Broadway musical.

She went on to star in eight more musicals, usually as the wide-eyed Broadway newcomer who falls in love with the buoyant tenor, Dick Powell. Asked for her favorite movie, she once replied, "Gee, I don't remember, they were all so much alike."

In 1941, Miss Keeler made her last film, "Sweetheart of the Campus" - "it was so bad I had no regrets about quitting."

Her marriage to entertainer Al Jolson over, she married developer John Lowe and had four children: Teresa, Christine, John and Kathleen. In 1971 she made a spectacular return to Broadway, hoofing in a revival of "No, No, Nanette."

She was born Aug. 25, 1909, in Halifax, Canada, but moved at age 4 to New York where her father made a meager living delivering ice. Dancing lessons came at 10 and by the time she was 14, she was dancing in the chorus of a George M. Cohan musical. After performing in several shows and night clubs, she won an important role in Florenz Ziegfeld's "Whoopee," starring Eddie Cantor.

In Los Angeles for a movie short, Miss Keeler met Jolson, who would soon star in the smash "The Jazz Singer," which ushered in the sound era. He followed her to New York, and they were married in 1928. She starred in a musical "Show Girl," but left the show to join Jolson in Hollywood where his career was booming.

The dancer remained known mainly as Mrs. Al Jolson until 1933 and "42nd Street." Her sweet-faced beauty and spirited tapping made her ideal for the musical boom that started with the film.

She followed with "Gold Diggers of 1933," "Footlight Parade," "Dames," "Flirtation Walk," "Go Into Your Dance" (with Jolson), "Shipmates Forever," "Colleen" and "Ready, Willing and Able."

Most of the films were choreographed by the gifted Busby Berkeley, famed for his leggy girls creating geometric patterns as seen from above. In one spectacular number, dozens of chorus girls wore Ruby Keeler masks.