The Prehistoric Women • Judy Landon - Eras

Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Judy Landon - Eras

 

Judith Brenna Landon, a professional dancer by trade, played the stone age Eras.   

Born Judith Brenna Levine, she was granted a legal name change by the California Superior Court at the age of 13 in September of 1941 to that of Judith Brenna Landon … she was at the time a “professional stage and film dancer.”

Landon is in several Los Angeles-area musical productions during the war years, including the “Waltz King” in 1943, later as a dancer with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association and then a spell with the Jack Cole Dancers in New York City.   

Her skill set landed her an uncredited dance role in director Henry Levin’s The Pretty Girl, starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield in September of 1949, so she’s back to Hollywood.  MGM’s troubled Annie Get Your Gun production re-launched in October of 1949 and Landon gets an uncredited spot as one of the “cowgirls.”

Then the magic happens, she is tapped by Albert J. Cohen to be one of the six starring women in Prehistoric Women, literally on the eve of production.   Her 17-day stint in the stone age jungle gets her only billed theatrical credit, despite appearing as a dancer in 23 other productions.

Why she wasn’t awarded a film credit by MGM for her appearance as “vamp” star Olga Mara in Singin’ in the Rain will forever be one of those sweet mysteries of life.  

As the story goes, Landon was working as a dancer on director George Marshall’s production of Red Garters on the Paramount lot in the summer of 1953 when she met rising film star Brian Keith in the commissary one afternoon and they hit it off.   

On June 24, 1954 they were married, which was the same day that he obtained a divorce in Mexico from his first wife Francis Helm. The California Superior Court ruled on Feb. 1, 1955 that the divorce was legal and adultery allegations filed by Helm in the interim were settled out of court.

Three months later, on May 16, 1955, Landon gave birth to their son, Michael James Keith.  She never danced in the movies again.  A daughter, Mimi, followed … and along the way Brian and Judy Keith adopted three children.

During the Christmas season of 1963 every parent’s worst nightmare happened.  Michael died of pneumonia on Dec. 20.   Four years later, as she testified in divorce proceedings, Brian Keith walked out of their Beverly Hills mansion one day and never returned.   Landon eventually filed for divorce, which was granted on May 2, 1969.

In 1970 she married legendary Royal Ballet dancer, Stanley Holden, who ran one of the most important dance studios — Stanley Holden Dance Center — in California (if not the world) for three decades.   They were married for 37 years until his death on Friday, May 11, 2007.

Brian Keith, successful screen and television actor with an impressive resume, suffering from cancer and emphysema, took his own life on June 24, 1997, which would have been the 43rd anniversary of his marriage to Landon.

Judith Brenna Holden died on Halloween, 2021 at the age of 93.  Eras had left us.