Actor |
Writer |
Director
Died: February 1,
1966
(age 70)
in Los Angeles, California, USA
When at six months of age he tumbled down a flight of stairs unharmed, he was given the name "Buster" by Harry Houdini who, along with W.C. Fields, Bill Robinson ("Bojangles"), Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson shared headlines with "The Three Keatons": Buster, his father Joe Keaton and mother Myra Keaton.
Their act, one of the most dangerous in vaudeville, was about how to
discipline a prankster child. Buster was thrown all over the stage and
even into the audience. No matter what the stunt, he was poker-faced. By
the time Buster turned 21, however, his father was such a severe
alcoholic that the stunts became too dangerous to perform and the act
dissolved. He first saw a movie studio in March 1917 and, on April 23,
his debut film, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's The Butcher Boy
(1917), was released. He stayed with Fatty through 15 two-reelers, even
though he was offered much more to sign with Fox or Warner Bros. after
returning from ten months with the U.S. Army (40th Infantry Division) in
France. His first full-length feature, The Saphead
(1920), established him as a star in his own right. By the middle of
1921 he had his own production company--Buster Keaton Productions--and
was writing, directing and starring in his own films. With a small and
close team around him, Keaton created some of the most beautiful and
imaginative films of the silent era. The General
(1926), his favorite, was one of the last films over which he had
artistic control. In 1928 he reluctantly signed with MGM after his
contract with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck
expired. MGM quickly began to enforce its rigid, mechanized style of
filmmaking on Keaton, swamping him with gag writers and scripts. He
fought against it for a time, and the compromise was initially fruitful,
his first film for MGM--The Cameraman
(1928)--being one of his finest. However,with his creativity becoming
increasingly stifled he began to drink excessively, despondent at having
to perform material that was beneath him. Ironically, his films around
1930 were his most successful to date in terms of box-office receipts,
which confirmed to MGM that its formula was right. His drinking led to a
disregard for schedules and erratic behavior on the MGM lot, and a
disastrous confrontation with Louis B. Mayer resulted in him being fired. The diplomatic producer Irving Thalberg
attempted to smooth things over but Keaton was past caring. By 1932 he
was a divorced alcoholic, getting work where he could, mostly in short
comedies. In 1935 he entered a mental hospital. MGM rehired him in 1937
as a $100-a-week gag writer (his salary ten years before was more than
ten times this amount). The occasional film was a boost to this steady
income. In 1947 his career rebounded with a live appearance at Cirque
Medrano in Paris. In 1952 James Mason,
who then owned Keaton's Hollywood mansion, found a secret store of
presumably lost nitrate stock of many of Buster's early films; film
historian and archivist Raymond Rohauer began a serious collection/preservation of Buster's work. In 1957 Buster appeared with Charles Chaplin in Limelight (1952) and his film biography, The Buster Keaton Story
(1957), was released. Two years later he received a special Oscar for
his life work in comedy, and he began to receive the accolades he so
richly deserved, with festivals around the world honoring his work. He
died in 1966, age 70.
Joseph Frank Keaton, was born in Piqua, Kansas, October 4, 1895 to
Joe Keaton and
Myra Keaton.
Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing
variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In
the earliest days on stage they traveled with a medicine show that
included family friend, illusionist
Harry Houdini.
Keaton himself verified the origin of his nickname "Buster", given to
him by Houdini, when at the age of three, fell down a flight of stairs
and was picked up and dusted off by Houdini, who said to Keaton's father
Joe, also nearby, that the fall was 'a buster'. Savvy showman Joe
Keaton liked the nickname, which has stuck for more than 100 years.
At
the age of four, Keaton had already begun acting with his parents on
the stage. Their act soon gained the reputation as one of the roughest
in the country, for their wild, physical antics on stage. It was normal
for Joe to throw Buster around the stage, participate in elaborate,
dangerous stunts to the reverie of audiences. After several years on the
Vaudeville circuit, "The Three Keatons", toured until Keaton had to
break up the act due to his father's increasing alcohol dependence,
making him a show business veteran by the age of 21.
While in New York looking for work, a chance run-in with the wildly successful film star and director
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, resulted in Arbuckle inviting him to be in his upcoming short
The Butcher Boy
(1917), an appearance that launched Keaton's film career, and spawned a
friendship that lasted until Arbuckle's sudden death in 1933. By 1920,
after making several successful shorts together, Arbuckle moved on to
features, and Keaton inherited his studio, allowing him the opportunity
to begin producing his own films. By September of 1921, tragedy touched
Arbuckle's life by way of a scandal, where he was tried three times for
the murder of Virginia Rapp. Although he was not guilty of the charges,
and never convicted, he was unable to regain his status, and the viewing
public would no longer tolerate his presence in film. Keaton stood by
his friend and mentor through out the incident, supporting him
financially, finding him directorial work, even risking his own budding
reputation offering to testify on Arbuckle's behalf.
In 1921, Keaton also married his first wife,
Natalie Talmadge under unusual circumstance that have never been fully clarified. Popular conjecture states that he was encouraged by
Joseph M. Schenck
to marry into the powerful Talmadge dynasty, that he himself was
already a part of. The union bore Keaton two sons. Keaton's independent
shorts soon became too limiting for the growing star, and after a string
of popular films like
One Week (1920),
The Boat (1921), and
Cops (1922), Keaton made the transition into feature films. His first feature,
Three Ages
(1923), was produced similarly to his short films, and was the dawning
of a new era in comedic cinema, where it became apparent to Keaton that
he had to put more focus on the story lines and characterization.
At the height of his popularity, he was making two features a year, and followed Ages with
Our Hospitality (1923),
The Navigator (1924) and _The General (1926)_, the latter two he regarded as his best films. The most renown of Keaton's comedies is
Sherlock Jr.
(1924), which used cutting edge special effects that received mixed
reviews as critics and audiences alike had never seen anything like it,
and didn't know what to make of it. Modern day film scholars liken the
story and effects to
Christopher Nolan Inception (2010), for it's high level concept and ground-breaking execution. Keaton's 1926 Civil War epic
The General
(1926)kept up his momentum when he gave audiences the biggest and most
expensive sequence ever seen in film at the time. At it's climax, a
bridge collapses while a train is passing over it, sending the train
into a river. This wowed audiences, but did little for it's long-term
financial success. Audiences did not respond well to the film, disliking
the higher level of drama over comedy, and the main character being a
Confederate soldier.
After a few more silent features, including
College (1927) and
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton was informed that his contract had been sold to MGM, by brother-in-law and producer
Joseph M. Schenck.
Keaton regarded the incident as the worst professional mistake he ever
made, as it sent his career, legacy, and personal life into a vicious
downward spiral for many years. His first film with MGM was
The Cameraman
(1928), which is regarded as one of his best silent comedies, but the
release signified the loss of control Keaton would incur, never again
regaining his film making independence. He made one more silent film at
MGM entitled
Spite Marriage (1929) before the sound era arrived.
His first appearance in a film with sound was with the ensemble piece
The Hollywood Revue of 1929
(1929), though despite the popularity of it and his previous MGM
silents, MGM never allowed Keaton his own production unit, and
increasingly reduced his creative control over his films. By 1932, his
marriage to
Natalie Talmadge
had dissolved when she sued him for divorce, and in an effort to
placate her, put up little resistance. This resulted in the loss of the
home he'd built for his family nicknamed The Italian Villa, the bulk of
his assets, and contact with his children. Natalie changed their last
names from Keaton to Talmadge, and they were dis-aloud from speaking
about their father or seeing him. About 10 years later, when they became
of age, they rekindled the relationship with Keaton. His hardships in
his professional and private life that had been slowly taking their
tole, begun to culminate by the early 1930's resulting in his own
dependence on alcohol, and sometimes violent and erratic behavior.
Depressed, penny-less, and out of control, he was fired by MGM by 1933,
and a full-fledged alcoholic.
After spending time in hospitals to
try and treat his alcoholism, he met second wife Mae Scrivens, a nurse,
and married her hastily in Mexico, only to end in divorce by 1935.
After his firing, he made several low-budget shorts for Educational
Pictures, and spent the next several years of his life fading out of
public favor, and finding work where he could. In 1936, his career was
slightly reinvigorated when he produced the short
Grand Slam Opera
(1936), which many of his fans admire for giving such a good
performance during the most difficult and unmanageable years of his
life.
In 1940, he met and married his third wife Eleanor Norris,
who was deeply devoted to him, and remained his constant companion and
partner until Keaton's death. After several more years of hardship
working as an uncredited, underpaid gag man for comedians such as The
Marx Brothers, in 1949, he was consulted on how to do a realistic and
comedic fall for the film
In the Good Old Summertime
(1949) in which an expensive violin is destroyed. Finding no one who
could do it better than him, he was given a minor role in the film. His
presence reignited interest in his silent films, which lead to
interviews, television appearances, film roles, and world tours that
kept him busy for the rest of his life.
After several more film,
television, and stage appearances through out the 1960s, he wrote the
autobiography My Wonderful World of Slapstick, having completed nearly
150 films in the span of his ground-breaking career. His last film
appearance was in the 1966 comedy
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
(1966) which premiered seven months after Keaton's death from the rapid
onset of lung cancer. Since his death, Keaton's legacy is being
discovered by new generations of viewers every day, many of his films
are available on YouTube, DVD, and Blu-Ray, where he, like all
gold-gilded and beloved entertainers can live forever.
IMDb Mini Biography By:
Nicolette Olivier polyestercowboyproductions@gmail.com
Spouse (3)
Trade Mark (4)
Pork pie hat, slapshoes, deadpan expression
His films contain elaborate gadgets of his own devising
Used the camera to help comedy, e.g. to create effect of rocking boat in beginning of
The Boat (1921).
Small and slight frame
Trivia (52)
Unlike many silent movie stars, Buster was eager to go into sound
considering he had a fine baritone voice with no speech impediments and
years of stage experience, so dialogue was not a problem.
Following his death, he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.
Fractured his neck while filming
Sherlock Jr. (1924) and did not learn about it until a doctor saw X-rays of his neck during a routine physical examination many years later.
Died quietly at home, in his sleep, shortly after playing cards with his wife.
He was already quite ill with the cancer that would eventually kill him by the time he made his last completed film,
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
(1966). He used a stunt double in this film, as well as most of the
films he made as an MGM contract player. Before signing with MGM in
1928, he had performed all of his own stunts, and even doubled for cast
members in his own films, as in
Sherlock Jr. (1924), where he played both himself, riding on the handlebars of a motorcycle, and the man who falls off the back of it.
His mother was of British/German ancestry, and his father was of Scottish/Irish ancestry.
Because most of his childhood was spent in vaudeville with his
parents, he had few peers. However, he enjoyed a more regular childhood
during his family's annual summer getaways to an Actor's Colony on Lake
Michigan in Muskegon, MI. In fact, the city of Muskegon has erected a
historical marker to note his stomping ground.
First married Mae Scriven in Mexico on January 1, 1932 before his divorce from
Natalie Talmadge was final, then again legally in 1933.
He became an alcoholic when he his career collapsed around 1930,
only kicking his habit and regaining his self-esteem when he married
Eleanor Norris (
Eleanor Keaton), his wife from 1940 until his death in 1966.
Was voted the 7th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, making him the highest rated comedy director.
Charles Chaplin didn't make the list.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume
One, 1890-1945". Pages 523-531. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
He was voted the 35th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
When he married
Natalie Talmadge,
the Talmadge family was one of the great acting dynasties in both
theater and film, and the gossip in Hollywood was that Keaton married
her to gain respect in the industry, a rumor he never quite lived down
during his peak. Ironically, Keaton is now a film legend, while most
people would be hard-pressed to answer who the Talmadges are.
Not only did Keaton do all his own stunts, but, when needed, he acted as a stunt double for other actors in the films.
He often surrounded himself with tall and heavy-set actors in his
films, typically as his antagonist, to make his character seem to be at
as much of a physical disadvantage as possible. The similarly diminutive
Charlie Chaplin (
Charles Chaplin) also did this.
The three top comedians in silent-era Hollywood were Keaton,
Charles Chaplin and
Harold Lloyd.
All three produced, controlled and owned their own films. Keaton was
convinced to sell his studio and films to MGM in the 1920s, while
Chaplin and Lloyd retained ownership of their films. Chaplin and Lloyd
became wealthy, while Keaton endured years of financial and personal
problems.
In one scene in
Sherlock Jr.
(1924), filmed at a train station, Keaton was hanging from a tube
connected to a water basin. The water poured out and washed him on to
the track, fracturing his neck. This footage appears in the released
film.
Was named the 21st Greatest Actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends List by the American Film Institute
Was hearing-impaired since 1918, after serving in Germany fighting World War I.
Met
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle for the first time strolling down Broadway in New York City. Arbuckle was with Keaton's old vaudeville acquaintance
Lou Anger,
who introduced them. Arbuckle immediately asked Keaton to visit the
Colony Studio, where he was set to begin a series of comedies for
Joseph M. Schenck. The famous comedy team was born.
Loved to play baseball. He would sometimes play between takes on
the movie set. Furthermore, for the annual Hollywood charity baseball
game for Mt. Sinai Hospital in the 1930s, he always led the comedians'
team and developed comedy business on field with his writers.
The Navigator (1924) was his most successful movie by gross revenue.
There is much legend regarding the conception of his nickname, Buster. Many attribute the name to the legendary
Harry Houdini, who was the partner of
Joe Keaton
(Buster's father) in the medicine-show group "Kathleen Marownen", after
he saw a young Buster fall down a set of stairs without any injury.
Others have said that it was Joe who conceived the name after he saw
Buster's accident, while still others say that Joe Keaton fabricated the
incident for a good story to tell on vaudeville. Which of these stories
is actually true is unknown.
He and his parents formed an acrobatic group called "The Three Keatons" in his early youth.
Wanted to become an engineer as a child.
His performance as Johnny Gray in
The General (1926) is ranked #34 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
When he was three years old he got his right index finger caught
in a clothes wringer and it was crushed and had to be amputated at the
first knuckle. The injury is most clearly visible in
The Garage (1920), when Keaton steadies
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's head with his right hand while wiping oil off his face with his left.
In 1952 while remodeling his home,
James Mason
discovered several reels of Keaton's "lost" films (Mason had purchased
Keaton's Hollywood mansion) and immediately recognized their historical
significance. He took upon himself the responsibility for their
preservation.
He is believed to be the first person to use "Buster" as a name, and popularized its usage ever after.
Keaton was one of the few actors who welcomed the advent of sound
films. He knew his character didn't need dialog, but he looked forward
to sound effects. "When somebody goes boom, they really go *boom*" he
once said.
A baseball fanatic, Keaton not only held games between takes, but
also incorporated it into applications for employment. According to
legend, two of the questions on the application he used to hire actors
read "Are you a good actor?" and "Are you a good baseball player?"
Anyone who answered "Yes" to either had a job with Keaton.
Broke his ankle while filming
The Electric House (1922) when he slipped on the escalator and was still recovering from it when he made
The Play House (1921) in which his stunts were considered to be tamer than usual.
On a whim Keaton took crew member
Edward Brophy and used him in a comedy role in
The Cameraman (1928). That decision launched Brophy on his own notable comedy career.
He was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion
Pictures at 6619 Hollywood Blvd. and for Television at 6321 Hollywood
Blvd.
Most biographers overlook his appearance on the ABC-TV variety show
The Hollywood Palace (1964). At the end of the first winter-spring season, series producers
Nick Vanoff and
William O. Harbach scheduled the show's host
Gene Barry with guest stars Keaton and
Gloria Swanson to appear together in a comedy sketch. Keaton was at that time appearing in
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
(1963). Bringing famous Hollywood film stars onto the show was the
producers' main goal. Getting Swanson and Keaton on the show was
considered a coup and an opportunity to promote the film. The sketch
starred Swanson as Cleopatra and Keaton as Marc Antony, staged on a
stepped Roman platform terrace surrounded by a 20-inch-high parapet wall
and Roman columns, with the pair falling in love. It was written by
Joe Bigelow and
Jay Burton, but director
Grey Lockwood
encouraged Swanson and Keaton to contribute any bits, routines and
ideas that they wanted to, which they did. On the first day of rehearsal
Swanson was on the stage, gazing up at the lighting fixtures overhead.
She asked for lighting director
Jack Denton
to come to the stage, which he did, and Swanson began pointing out how
she wanted which lights to focus on her and Keaton during the
sketch--side light, key light, back light, which color gels to use, etc.
Denton made sure that all of her suggestions were implemented. Keaton's
idea was that the sketch should end with "Antony" and "Cleopatra"
sitting on the parapet wall bench, join hands, raising their legs high
and falling backwards out of sight over the wall. He and Swanson
rehearsed the fall several times, and did the stunt themselves when it
came time to actually shoot the scene for the show.
Contributed gags (uncredited) to the
Red Skelton film
A Southern Yankee
(1948). No one could figure out a simple, yet funny way to get Aubrey
out of the house when he was being held captive by the angry dog. Buster
, employed by MGM as a roving gag man, was called to the set, looked at
the set up, and came up with the idea of removing the door hinges and
letting the dog in as Aubrey got out. The most famous gag in the movie
took him all of five minutes to devise. Some of the other gags he
contributed were some he'd done himself years earlier.
David Jason
is one of his biggest fans, and claims to channel him whenever he did
his own stunts. He was quite honored when the Daily Mirror compared
them.
Perhaps as a result of an accident that crushed his right index
finger at age three, he developed the ability to use his right hand for
certain tasks and his left hand for others. He wrote left-handed but
played the ukulele right-handed. When he played baseball (his favorite
sport), he threw right-handed and batted left-handed.
A heavy smoker for most of his life, he was diagnosed with lung
cancer during the first week of January 1966 after a month-long coughing
bout, but he was never told that he was terminally ill or that he had
cancer, as his doctors feared that the news would be detrimental to his
health. Keaton thought that he was recovering from a severe case of
bronchitis. Despite his failing health, he was active and walking about
almost until the day he died.
Personal Quotes (25)
No man can be a genius in slapshoes and a flat hat.
Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.
I gotta do some sad scenes. Why, I never tried to make anybody cry
in my life! And I go 'round all the time dolled up in kippie
clothes--wear everything but a corset . . . can't stub my toe in this
picture nor anything! Just imagine having to play-act all the time
without ever getting hit with anything!
[Asked by a reporter at an MGM premiere, "Are you happy to be here?"] Of course, I got off location for this!
What used to get my goat at MGM were comedians like
The Marx Brothers or [
Bud Abbott] and [
Lou Costello], who never worried about the script or the next scene. My God, we ate, slept and dreamed our pictures.
Is Hollywood the cruelest city in the world? Well, it can be. New
York can be like that, too. You can be a Broadway star here one night,
and something happens, and then you're out--nobody knows you on the
street. They forget you ever lived. It happens in Hollywood, too.
The first thing I did in the studio was to want to tear that
camera to pieces. I had to know how that film got into the cutting room,
what you did to it in there, how you projected it, how you finally got
the picture together, how you made things match. The technical part of
pictures is what interested me. Material was the last thing in the world
I thought about. You only had to turn me loose on the set and I'd have
material in two minutes, because I'd been doing it all my life.
They say pantomime's a lost art. It's never been a lost art and never will be, because it's too natural to do.
[on his time working as an uncredited gag writer for
The Marx Brothers
at MGM] It was an event when you could get all three of them on the set
at the same time. The minute you started a picture with the Marx
Brothers you hired three assistant directors, one for each Marx brother.
You had two of 'em while you went to look for the third one and the
first two would disappear.
Think slow, act fast.
Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.
[on the differences between his and
Charles Chaplin's
characters] Charlie's tramp was a bum with a bum's philosophy. Lovable
as he was, he would steal if he got the chance. My little fellow was a
working man and honest.
All my life, I have been happiest when the folks watching me said to each other, "Look at the poor dope, will ya?".
Not long ago, a friend asked me what was the greatest pleasure I
got from spending my whole life as an actor. There have been so many
that I had to think about that for a moment. Then I said, "Like everyone
else, I like to be with a happy crowd.".
Dumb show is best for screen people, if they must appear in public.
I've had few dull moments [in my life] and not too many sad and
defeated ones. In saying this, I am by no means overlooking the rough
and rocky years I've lived through. But I was not brought up thinking
life would be easy. I always expected to work hard for my money and to
get nothing I did not earn. And the bad years, it seems to me, were so
few that only a dyed-in-the-wool grouch who enjoys feeling sorry for
himself would complain.
Only things that one could imagine happening to real people, I guess, remain in a person's memory.
When I've got a gag that spreads out, I hate to jump a camera into
close-ups. So I do everything in the world I can to hold it in that
long-shot and keep the action rolling. Close-ups are too jarring on the
screen, and this type of cut can stop an audience from laughing.
Half of our scenes, for God's sakes, we only just talked over. We
didn't actually get out there and rehearse 'em. We would just walk
through it and talk about it. We crank that first rehearsal. Because any
thing can happen--and generally did . . . We used the rehearsal scenes
instead of the second take.
[on the advent of sound in the movies] In every picture it got
tougher. They'd laugh their heads off at dialogue written by all your
new writers. They were joke-happy. They didn't look for action; they
were looking for funny things to say.
I always want the audience to out-guess me, and then I double-cross them.
A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny.
[on why he did all his own stunts] Stuntmen don't get laughs.
Pop made me the featured performer of our act when I was five.
There were dozens of other family acts in vaudeville at the turn of the
century, but none of the children in them was featured as early as that.
Many of those kids were very talented, and their parents were as eager
as mine to give them the same head start in show business that I was
getting. The reason managers approved of my being featured was because I
was unique, being at that time the only little hell-raising Huck Finn
type boy in vaudeville. The parents of the others presented their boys
as cute and charming Little Lord Fauntleroys. The girls were Dolly
Dimples types with long, golden curls. I doubt that any kid actor had
more attempts made to save him [by civic do-gooders] than did our Little
Buster. The reason of course was our slam-bang act. Even people who
most enjoyed our work marvelled when I was able to get up after my
bashing, crashing, smashing sessions with pop.
Railroads are a great prop. You can do some awful wild things with railroads.
Salary (16)
| Le roi des Champs-Élysées (1934)
| $15,000 |
| Palooka from Paducah (1935)
| $2,500 |
| One Run Elmer (1935)
| $2,500 |
| Hayseed Romance (1935)
| $2,500 |
| Tars and Stripes (1935)
| $2,500 |
| The E-Flat Man (1935)
| $2,500 |
| The Timid Young Man (1935)
| $2,500 |
| Three on a Limb (1936)
| $2,500 |
| Grand Slam Opera (1936)
| $2,500 |
| Blue Blazes (1936)
| $2,500 |
| The Chemist (1936)
| $2,500 |
| Mixed Magic (1936)
| $2,500 |
| Jail Bait (1937)
| $2,500 |
| Ditto (1937)
| $2,500 |
| Love Nest on Wheels (1937)
| $2,500 |
| Sunset Blvd. (1950)
| $1,000 |
God
bless all you dads out there. What an awesome responsibility being a
father is...and such a roller coaster ride of emotions, work, and
stress...so exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating and rewarding all at
the same time.
