Jacquelyn 'Jackie' McKeever was an American actress and singer.
19 Facts About Jackie McKeever
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Jackie McKeever developed a love for music at an early age, graduated from Whitehall High School, and attended Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
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Jackie McKeever was a music major at Susquehanna and while there was involved in Sigma Alpha Iota, a music fraternity for women.
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Jackie McKeever was involved in piano, chapel choir, Susquehanna Singers and the Symphony Orchestra.
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Jackie McKeever started teaching music after college, including a stint teaching Music Appreciation at a grade school in Livingston, New Jersey.
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Jackie McKeever later said she only took the teaching job to get her closer to New York City so she could study piano there.
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Jackie McKeever was discovered while teaching in Livingston when she joined the choir of a local church when a music director heard her sing.
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Jackie McKeever then decided to leave her teaching career and pursue a full-time career on Broadway.
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Jackie McKeever won the talent contest in three episodes before losing.
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Jackie McKeever continued to take class and worked on her acting chops by performing in summer stock in New York.
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Jackie McKeever was cast in the musical A Carefree Heart that never made it to Broadway.
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Also in that show was veteran performer Susan Johnson, who helped Jackie McKeever get a part in a new musical based on the 1953 film The Captain's Paradise.
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Jackie McKeever played the part that in the film was portrayed by Celia Johnson.
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Jackie McKeever had to learn an English accent, which she said she did by watching movies.
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Johnson and Jackie McKeever were nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical together and lost to Barbara Cook for The Music Man.
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Jackie McKeever is most known for starring in a 1958 television adaptation of the musical Wonderful Town opposite Rosalind Russell.
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Jackie McKeever took the role of Eileen Sherwood in the television version.
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Jackie McKeever died on June 27,2007, at the age of 76 of natural causes.
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Jackie McKeever had retired from show business and was a resident of Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, and her hometown of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania.