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A Maverick Life: The Jack Kelly Story
If you say the name, Jack Kelly, many who follow classic entertainment will raise an eyebrow and say, a bit confused, “Who?” While this man’s name isn’t always instantly recognizable, it really should be since Jack was in front of a camera and on the big and small screens since he was a baby, and for most of his life from then on.
Jack Kelly began a career as a model at the age of two under the direction of his stage mother, modeling in a soap print ad. He continued to model throughout his formative years, and snagged his first acting job when he was only nine years old, appearing on Broadway in Swing Your Lady with Hope Emerson … again under the tutelage of his mother.
In his adolescence, he performed in nightclubs and vaudeville. His insistent mother was New York model, Nan Kelly, and his sister, was theater and movie actress, Nancy Kelly. Through her, he became the brother-in-law of Academy award winning actor Edmond O'Brien and cinematographer Fred Jackman, Jr. In later years, he was a California newspaper publisher and a long-standing politician.
After plodding along behind the scenes in the industry for longer than many acting careers lasted from beginning to end, Jack’s big break came to him via the TV screen. From 1957 until 1962 he was known as Bart Maverick, James Garner's brother on the celebrated, groundbreaking Western, Maverick. A series that changed the way Westerns were viewed on the small screen, Maverick broke all the accepted rules and dared to mix mocking, cynical humor into a timeworn entertainment genre.
The truth is, Jack Kelly was a cornerstone star on this show even longer than James Garner... and starry-eyed women would often say he was the reason they kept coming back for more week after week. In fact, women still say that, even though Maverick has been in syndication for decades, ever since it originally left its primetime run.
Oh yeah... Jack was also a child actor of the late 1930s in many movies, went To Hell and Back with Audie Murphy, and took a wild and out-of-this world trip to the Forbidden Planet in the 1950s. In the late 1960s, he was on the cutting edge of The Sale of The Century, taking on the job of the show’s host. He managed to regularly Get Christie Love in 1975, and from the late 1950s and into the 1970s Jack Kelly had a guest role on virtually every TV show that ever aired. His voice was also heard on commercials advertising everything from delicious beer to elegant automobiles, and all in between.
At that point, the real work began for Jack Kelly. He cut back on his big and small screen assignments to serve as a two-term Huntington Beach, California city councilman and mayor. He had the good fortune to love some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood and beyond, twice becoming a husband. His first marriage was to actress, May Wynn, who played the female lead in 1954’s The Caine Mutiny. Jack would probably tell everyone that his greatest ultimate joy was in becoming a father. Though this joy came to him later in life, Jack Kelly had always wanted a child, and his dream was finally realized when his daughter Nicole was born to him and his second wife, Jo, a public relations executive and real estate agent. Together, he and Jo built a life which included buying and selling properties and creating a brand built around Jack’s singular, unique personality.
Jack Kelly was a bon vivant, a renowned chef and jovial and welcoming host. He loved people, and he loved his hard-earned world. He was a man who really LIVED in his sixty-five years, and he never looked back.
A Maverick Life: The Jack Kelly Story takes readers through his entertaining roller-coaster of a life, celebrating his astronomical highs and squarely, openly and fairly facing his bottom-of-the-barrel lows. This is the first-ever biography written about this underrated actor. The book pulls no punches while revealing many behind-the-scenes details about the difficult transition period when television was in its earliest days, fighting against the established movie industry, and actors were trying to settle into a hard-to-find middle ground.
This is author Linda Alexander’s sixth published book, and her very first with BearManor Media. She will release two more in 2013 with this retro entertainment publisher—the republication of her 2008 biography of understated Golden Era movie star, Reluctant Witness: Robert Taylor, Hollywood, & Communism, as well as the first in-depth biography of Allan Lane, B-western cowboy actor, and the voice of TV’s infamous and most well-known talking horse, I Am Mr. Ed … Allan “Rocky” Lane Revealed.
Jack Kelly began a career as a model at the age of two under the direction of his stage mother, modeling in a soap print ad. He continued to model throughout his formative years, and snagged his first acting job when he was only nine years old, appearing on Broadway in Swing Your Lady with Hope Emerson … again under the tutelage of his mother.
In his adolescence, he performed in nightclubs and vaudeville. His insistent mother was New York model, Nan Kelly, and his sister, was theater and movie actress, Nancy Kelly. Through her, he became the brother-in-law of Academy award winning actor Edmond O'Brien and cinematographer Fred Jackman, Jr. In later years, he was a California newspaper publisher and a long-standing politician.
After plodding along behind the scenes in the industry for longer than many acting careers lasted from beginning to end, Jack’s big break came to him via the TV screen. From 1957 until 1962 he was known as Bart Maverick, James Garner's brother on the celebrated, groundbreaking Western, Maverick. A series that changed the way Westerns were viewed on the small screen, Maverick broke all the accepted rules and dared to mix mocking, cynical humor into a timeworn entertainment genre.
The truth is, Jack Kelly was a cornerstone star on this show even longer than James Garner... and starry-eyed women would often say he was the reason they kept coming back for more week after week. In fact, women still say that, even though Maverick has been in syndication for decades, ever since it originally left its primetime run.
Oh yeah... Jack was also a child actor of the late 1930s in many movies, went To Hell and Back with Audie Murphy, and took a wild and out-of-this world trip to the Forbidden Planet in the 1950s. In the late 1960s, he was on the cutting edge of The Sale of The Century, taking on the job of the show’s host. He managed to regularly Get Christie Love in 1975, and from the late 1950s and into the 1970s Jack Kelly had a guest role on virtually every TV show that ever aired. His voice was also heard on commercials advertising everything from delicious beer to elegant automobiles, and all in between.
At that point, the real work began for Jack Kelly. He cut back on his big and small screen assignments to serve as a two-term Huntington Beach, California city councilman and mayor. He had the good fortune to love some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood and beyond, twice becoming a husband. His first marriage was to actress, May Wynn, who played the female lead in 1954’s The Caine Mutiny. Jack would probably tell everyone that his greatest ultimate joy was in becoming a father. Though this joy came to him later in life, Jack Kelly had always wanted a child, and his dream was finally realized when his daughter Nicole was born to him and his second wife, Jo, a public relations executive and real estate agent. Together, he and Jo built a life which included buying and selling properties and creating a brand built around Jack’s singular, unique personality.
Jack Kelly was a bon vivant, a renowned chef and jovial and welcoming host. He loved people, and he loved his hard-earned world. He was a man who really LIVED in his sixty-five years, and he never looked back.
A Maverick Life: The Jack Kelly Story takes readers through his entertaining roller-coaster of a life, celebrating his astronomical highs and squarely, openly and fairly facing his bottom-of-the-barrel lows. This is the first-ever biography written about this underrated actor. The book pulls no punches while revealing many behind-the-scenes details about the difficult transition period when television was in its earliest days, fighting against the established movie industry, and actors were trying to settle into a hard-to-find middle ground.
This is author Linda Alexander’s sixth published book, and her very first with BearManor Media. She will release two more in 2013 with this retro entertainment publisher—the republication of her 2008 biography of understated Golden Era movie star, Reluctant Witness: Robert Taylor, Hollywood, & Communism, as well as the first in-depth biography of Allan Lane, B-western cowboy actor, and the voice of TV’s infamous and most well-known talking horse, I Am Mr. Ed … Allan “Rocky” Lane Revealed.