Lewis Keester Sweeney (1910-96) is not credited on this website against any of the musicals listed, but mention of him is essential.
Sweeney was an art student sent from UCLA in 1936 to help MGM with makeup for The Good Earth (1937). He stayed at the studio for over a quarter of a century.
His internet presence is peculiar. It acknowledges him as an important makeup artist who worked with the great MGM stars of the classic period, but both IMDb and the AFI only show a few credits from 1956 onwards, largely television assignments. There is no indication of which films he worked on through the bulk of his career.
Sweeney knew nothing about makeup when called to MGM and had to learn on the job. In an interview, he said the first star he worked with was Jeanette MacDonald, who helped him out and became a friend.
The obituary for Keester Sweeney in the Los Angeles Times described him as the “MGM makeup artist who prepared such stars as Jeanette MacDonald, Judy Garland, Greta Garbo and Fred Astaire for the cameras”. The unavailability of details about this apparently eminent career is mystifying.
