Evelyn Keyes

Performer

Evelyn Keyes

A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.

Born
Unknown
Active
1939–2020
Performances
6
In Nutevio
1939–2020
Known for
Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests
Performer Score
6.8
  • Hall of Fame
View filmography

Nutevio rank

#43723

of 909177 performers

Top 5%

Evelyn Keyes represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 81 years in, and Evelyn is still choosing the harder script.
Ranked #43723 of 909177 performers in the Nutevio catalogue. Recalculated automatically as titles and credits are imported.

The essay

Reading Evelyn Keyes

Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.

Why this performer matters

Evelyn Keyes appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Evelyn. Gone with the Wind is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.

Signature style

The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for documentary, romance, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.

Legacy

Working with Michael Anderson, Billy Wilder, Alexander Hall and others, Evelyn Keyes helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.

Best known for

Gone with the Wind (1939) as Suellen O'Hara · The Seven Year Itch (1955) as Helen Sherman · Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) as Bette Logan

Career snapshot

The career at a glance

Ranked #43723 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.

  • Films in Nutevio

    6

    1939–2020

  • Career length

    81 yrs

    Measured across our catalogue

  • Academy Awards

    Unknown

  • Oscar nominations

    Unknown

  • Highest Nutevio score

    7.9

    Gone with the Wind

  • Average Nutevio score

    5.8

    Across catalogue work

  • Highest IMDb rating

    7.9

    Gone with the Wind

  • Most frequent director

    Michael Anderson

    1 film together

  • Longest collaboration

    With Michael Anderson

  • Most common genre

    Romance

    4 titles

  • Average runtime

    2h 9m

    Across catalogue work

  • Golden Globe wins

    Unknown

Nutevio metric

Performer Score

Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.

Nutevio Performer Score

6.8

out of 10

A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.

  • Performance quality6.4
  • Consistency6.4
  • Emotional range6.4
  • Character transformation6.4
  • Cultural impact6.4
  • Iconic roles6.4
  • Career longevity9.9
  • Influence6.4
  • Awards recognition7.1
  • Rewatch value6.4

Nutevio metric

Influence Score

Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.

Nutevio Influence Score

6.8

out of 10

A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.

  • Cultural impact5.5

    How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.

  • Legacy7.5

    What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.

  • Industry recognition6.6

    Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.

  • Career longevity9.9

    Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.

  • Awards6.4

    Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.

  • Iconic performances6.8

    Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.

  • Influence on filmmakers5.5

    Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.

  • Influence on other actors6.5

    The reading other performers now have to answer.

Actor DNA

How they work on screen

A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.

  • Versatility99
  • Quiet performance95
  • Transformation88
  • Emotional range71
  • Drama63
  • Screen presence58
  • Rewatchability57
  • Charisma53
  • Comedy27
  • Villain presence21
  • Physical performance19
  • Intensity19
  • Action17

The shape of a career

Career evolution

Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.

678910193919391941195519562020
  • Nutevio
  • Performance score
  • IMDb

Peak years

Best era

Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.

Best decade

1930s

7.2 average MV

The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Union Pacific, Gone with the Wind — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.

Highest average Nutevio score

1930s

7.2

Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.

Highest average IMDb rating

1930s

7.3

The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.

Most awarded era

1930s

0 Academy Awards

Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Union Pacific, Gone with the Wind.

Most productive era

1930s

2 films

The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.

Range, mapped

Career heatmap

Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.

The career concentrates in drama during the 1930s, and the scores hold there.
Genre1930s1940s1950s2020s
Drama
7.22 films
Comedy
6.71 film
6.82 films
Romance
7.91 film
6.71 film
6.82 films

Chronology

Career timeline

Firsts and peaks

Career milestones

The turning points, in the order they happened.

  1. First film in Nutevio

    1939Union Pacific

    Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mrs. Calvin.

  2. Highest rated performance · Career peak

    1939Gone with the Wind

    7.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.

  3. Most recent film

    2020Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests

    The current state of the argument, as Self (archive footage).

Our order

Performances ranked

Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.

1
Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

1939 · Romance

3h 58m

7.9IMDb
2
Official poster for The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seven Year Itch

1955 · Romance

1h 45m

7.0IMDb
3
Official poster for Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

1941 · Romance

1h 34m

7.0IMDb
4
Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days

1956 · Romance

3h 2m

6.7IMDb
5
Official poster for Union Pacific (1939)

Union Pacific

1939 · Western

2h 15m

6.7IMDb
6
Official poster for Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests (2020)

Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests

2020 · Documentary

0h 18m

Every title

Filmography

Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.

Genre
Decade
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6 of 6 films

From the library

Complete credits

Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.

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The defining work

Signature performances

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

#1

Suellen O'Hara

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Performance score7.7

The performance the rest of the career is read through. Suellen O'Hara gives Evelyn Keyes a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.

View movie
Official poster for The Seven Year Itch (1955)

#2

Helen Sherman

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Performance score7.3

The Seven Year Itch asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Helen Sherman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie
Official poster for Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

#3

Bette Logan

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Performance score7.1

Here Comes Mr. Jordan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bette Logan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie
Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

#4

Paris Tart

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Performance score6.6

Around the World in 80 Days asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paris Tart is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie

Start here

The movie journey

A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Best entry point

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

Start here. Gone with the Wind is the clearest statement of what Evelyn Keyes does — accessible, 238 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.

Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Evelyn at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.

  1. Official poster for Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

    Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

    Keeps the romance register of Gone with the Wind but asks for a colder reading of it.

  2. Official poster for The Seven Year Itch (1955)

    The Seven Year Itch (1955)

    Keeps the romance register of Here Comes Mr. Jordan but asks for a colder reading of it.

  3. Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

    Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

    Keeps the romance register of The Seven Year Itch but asks for a colder reading of it.

  4. Official poster for Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests (2020)

    Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests (2020)

    A deliberate change of key after Around the World in 80 Days — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.

Company kept

Frequent collaborators

The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.

Behind the camera

Director network

Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.

Six degrees

Connected through cinema

Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.

Categories of our own

Most rewatchable, most emotional, most influential

Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.

Most rewatchable

Official poster for The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seven Year Itch

as Helen Sherman

The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.

Most emotional performance

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.

Most influential performance

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.

Best ensemble performance

Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days

as Paris Tart

Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.

Career defining performance

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.

In their films' words

Lines that stay

You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Evelyn Keyes has known it for a long time.

Nutevio Editors · On Gone with the Wind

Head to head

Compare performers

Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.

Ours alone

Nutevio Honors

Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.

Career Achievement

Awarded

81 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.

Romance Legend

Awarded

4 catalogue titles in romance, each one a reference point for the films that followed.

Our desk

Editor's picks

Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.

Best ending

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.

Best opening

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.

Most emotional

Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days

as Paris Tart

The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.

Best twist

Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days

as Paris Tart

A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.

Best visual achievement

Official poster for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind

as Suellen O'Hara

Images that would survive with the sound switched off.

Best action sequence

Official poster for Union Pacific (1939)

Union Pacific

as Mrs. Calvin

Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.

Best dialogue

Official poster for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days

as Paris Tart

Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.

Most underrated film

Official poster for Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests (2020)

Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests

as Self (archive footage)

The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.

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Reference

Quick facts

Born
Unknown
Years active
1939–2020
Known for
Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests
Genres
Documentary, Romance, Comedy
Nutevio rank
#43723
of 909177 performers tracked

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