Career
O'Keefe started in films as an extra in the early 1930s and appeared in numerous films under the name Bud Flanagan. After a small but impressive role in Saratoga (1937), Clark Gable recommended O'Keefe to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which signed him to a contract in 1937 and renamed him Dennis O'Keefe. His film roles were bigger after that, starting with The Bad Man of Brimstone (1938), and the lead role in Burn 'Em Up O'Connor (1939).
O'Keefe left MGM around 1940 but continued to work in mostly lower budget productions. He often played the tough guy in action and crime dramas but was also known as a comic actor as well as a dramatic lead. In the 1950s he did some directing and wrote mystery stories. In the middle 1950s, he appeared on NBC's legal drama Justice and on the network's The Martha Raye Show. On October 3, 1957, he was a guest star on another NBC variety show, The Ford Show, starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. From 1957 to 1958, he was the host of Suspicion, a TV series produced by Alfred Hitchcock. From 1959-1960, he was the star of the CBS Television situation comedy, The Dennis O'Keefe Show.
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