Note: This article was about both Brian Keith and Julia's Diahann Carroll. I've snipped the parts that are solely about Carroll but retained transitional paragraphs about both actors.

First marriages failed for both Brian Keith and Diahann Carroll. Today, however, the privacy-minded star of Family Affair is trying desperately to save his second marriage.

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Brian and Diahann have met only casually. Yet there is a common quality to be found in their loves and TV successes. Both are extremely sensitive individuals and put home life above all else. Their warmhearted affection for children contributes vastly to making Family Affair and Julia glow with parental love. Still, behind Brian's cat-like grin and Diahann's glowing smile on TV, private heartaches exist.

For such veteran performers the show must always go on. Personal misfortunes must be locked away inside--only to be suffered alone.

Brian Keith is not the type to tell his troubles to anybody--even his closest friends. But what he may not realize is that, among the millions of fans across the country and overseas, there are many who have been greatly concerned during the past year over the reported troubles in his marriage. Brian and Judy have been wed 14 years and have four youngsters.

As an example of his fans' concern, here is one of the numerous letters TV Radio Mirror has received inquiring about Brian and Judy.

The letter, from a housewife in Florida, reads in part: "Is there any news of my favorite family, the Brian Keiths? Was so glad to hear he had gotten his troubles settled and returned to his family. Only today, though, I heard they had either separated again and were going through a divorce, or were already divorced as of Nov. 6th. Is this true?

I just can't believe it--they have too much going for them to break up now. I hope Brian hasn't let success change him as it did so many other actors."

Perhaps it is an awareness that they have so much "going for them" that makes the Keiths confident that their reconciliation will "take." Brian, at this writing, is very much "at home" with his family. Certainly there is no record of any divorce action, and we seriously doubt that any will be forthcoming. But in Hollywood you never know, of course. We do know that Judy, a devout Catholic, as is Brian, has indicated that she would never divorce Brian. It would be contrary to all that she believes in. Brian, too.

"And he's trying very hard," one of the few friends, who knows him well, tells us. "He's been on the road making features, but he spent Christmas at home with Judy and the children."

Actually, the TV show occupies very little of Brian's time. He works an average of three months a year doing Family Affair. Arrangements are made so that parts of many segments can be filmed the same week. All scenes involving Brian are done first, other actors do their scenes later, and the shows are edited together later.

Part of Brian's last year's estrangement from his family evolved from movie-making problems. He has had to be away from home so much working on location. Last year he was in Spain for a film, and barely had he returned than he was tied up with another, With Six You Get Eggroll. Family Affair went on hiatus in November and Brian was signed at once for another feature.

"I hope to get some time off this spring for a vacation," he revealed to an associate. And the speculation is that he'll take off with Judy for some distant romantic place for a second honeymoon.

Mrs. Keith, the former Judith Landon, tries hard to understand the constant career demands that take her husband away from her. She herself was an actress and a ballet dancer. One day while on the Paramount lot, making Red Garters, starring Rosemary Clooney, Judy started talking to a rugged actor in the commissary. It turned out to be Brian, who was on the lot making Jivaro. Well, it was instant fall-in-love time. A year later they were married and Judy retired from the profession.

What was most shocking about the Keiths' original marriage troubles was that they had been heralded as the ideal couple. Their circle of friends was a very proper and sophisticated one. And they were (and still are, we hasten to add) highly respected as patrons of the arts. Never, so far as anyone knows, have the Keiths been to a disco. They are devotees of the Los Angeles Music Center and subscribing patrons of the Southern California Symphony Association, the Hollywood Bowl and Opera Guild.

They had, and have, many common interests.

They have also shared life's greatest tragedy--the death of a child. Several years ago, their adored first-born child, Mike, who was just eight, suddenly became ill with pneumonia and died within 24 hours. This shattered them both. To Brian, their home, a palatial mansion in Bel Air, became a tearful reminder of how he once romped around the grounds with Mike.

He was heartsick, although he loved dearly his baby daughter, Mimi. Judy knew all too well how Brian was suffering. In time, she suggested that they adopt a boy. At first Brian was dead set against the idea. Then when he saw the child at an orphanage he fell in love with the boy, Rory. Because Rory has two sisters, the Keiths adopted them, too.

Apparently, though, even the joy the children brought to his home could not relieve Brian's heartache.

In time, complications developed in the Keiths' marriage, though Brian knew he didn't want a divorce. He did want time alone to think things over, though.

Brian consulted with the family priest, as did Judy. And they determined to try to work things out. It meant praying harder, fighting harder, than at any time in their married life. From all indications, Brian and Judy are succeeding in saving their marriage. May they long be counted upon as Mr. and Mrs. First Nighter at the theater and opera openings they take so much pleasure in attending.

We remember Brian's words when he first began the TV series.

"This is the type of show I love," he said, "because it reminds me of what happiness I have with my wife and children."

It seemed obvious that Brian had found a happiness in his second marriage that he had not in his first.

On Jan. 3, 1948, he was married to actress Frances Helm. He was 26 and only recently out of the Navy. They met while they were both appearing on Broadway in John Loves Mary. For several years they struggled to make a success of their marriage, which was childless. But they were finally divorced and, in 1954, Brian, whose career had taken him to Hollywood, married Judy.

Brian and Frances Helm's divorce was a friendly one. He even volunteered to pay alimony, which Frances refused to accept, and the matter was dropped, with court approval. This marital failure apparently did not have the traumatic effect on Brian or Frances--she has been happily married to another for several years now--that Diahann Carroll's divorce had on her.

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These are the lives of Brian Keith and Diahann Carroll today, the very favorite "parental figures" to television fans everywhere. On TV they portray single people -- Brian, a dashing bachelor; Diahann, a brave young widow -- whose greatest happiness is in the youngsters they're rearing. Off TV, it is much the same. In his TV role, Brian, however warily, is ripe for marriage; in real life, as all his friends know, the only role that truly satisfies him is head of the family. Today, he is making a gallant effort to continue as that on a permanent basis.

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