It is the angle that you remember: the figure perfectly straight but tilted forward, like the Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood of a Rolls-Royce [in The Three Ages], he drives a low-grade automobile over a bump in the road, and the car just crumbles beneath him. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend, illusionist Harry Houdini. [2] He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". But it's even more pleasurable to get back to the presentwhere brooding, miserable, non-smiling Humphrey Bogart really shines. Keaton, Eleanor and Jeffrey Vance. Afterward, I only gradually realized what kind of family I was inheriting. After her step-grandmother Eleanor died in 1998, Cox became the family's Goodwill Ambassador on behalf of her Grandpa Buster. He is the first action hero; to be precise, he is a small, pale-faced American who is startled, tripped, drenched and inspired into becoming a hero. Joseph Talmadge Keaton was the first son born to comic actor Buster Keaton and his wife, actress Natalie Talmadge; he was also a nephew of silent screen actresses Norma and Constance Talmadge. He was a motion picture comic actor, writer, producer, and director of the 1910s thru 1960s. Several factors, other than the loss of creative control, contributed to Keaton's downward spiral in the late 1920s and early 1930s. American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer, Born on October 04, 1895 The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera (1936), featuring Keaton in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. Alone in New York City, Buster was walking down the street when he encountered Lou Anger, an old family friend from their days on the road. Harry N. Abrams, 2001, pg. that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. The theatrical feature film The Misadventures of Buster Keaton was fashioned from the series. [21] In Keaton's retelling, he was six months old when the incident occurred, and Harry Houdini gave him the nickname (though the family did not get to know Houdini until later). . His great period began in 1923 when he appeared in The Three Ages and a year later he made a full length comedy . On June 16, 2018, the International Buster Keaton Society laid a four-foot plaque in honor of both Keaton and Charles Chaplin on the corner of the shared block (1021 Lillian Ave) where each had made many of their silent comedies in Hollywood. [78], Buster Keaton's comedy endures not just because he had a face that belongs on Mount Rushmore, at once hauntingly immovable and classically American, but because that face was attached to one of the most gifted actors and directors who ever graced the screen. It soon. But not MGM. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 - February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. [53] Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials for Colgate, Alka-Seltzer, U.S. Steel, 7-Up, RCA Victor, Phillips 66, Milky Way, Ford Motors, Minute Rub, and Budweiser, among others. His final appearance on film was in The Scribe, a 1966 safety film produced in Toronto by the Construction Safety Associations of Ontario: he died shortly after completing it. They eventually had two sons, Joseph and Robert. This was witnessed by the magician Harry Houdini (or, some say, actor George Pardey), who christened the hearty boy Buster. A 1905 ad for The Three Keatons read: "Maybe you think you were handled roughly as a kid watch the way they handle Buster!". His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana. The spectacular stunt cost $42,000 to makea huge amount at the time. Irving was usually on my side, but this time he said, 'Larry likes it. He would return often. These guys didn't realizethey still don't realizethat the best comedies are simple. A scene from "Our Hospitality," the feature film at the 2013 Buster Keaton Convention in Muskegon. I just stood there, and everybody is hassling. Spouse: Thelma Ferne WOOD (1905-xxxx) 4454 People 0 Records 0 Sources: Buster William Keaton Sr. found in 22 trees View all. Keaton grew up on the road, as his parents endlessly . Most of these 16 films are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself, often recycling ideas from his family vaudeville act and his earlier films. He was a student at Blackfox Military Academy and a graduate of Santa Monica High School. In Seven Chances (1925), he faces a rockslide. Keatan balanced his work in front and behind the camera very well. "Introduction." that MGM fired him after the filming was completed, despite the film being a commercial hit. [104], Keaton's Sherlock Jr., in which he walks into the movie he is projecting, was an influence Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, in which a character walks out of a movie and into real life. In addition to appearing in numerous commercials (including one for Alka-Seltzer), Keaton made many guest appearances in both comedies and dramas. 3, Thames Television, 1987, Perez Gilberto 'The Material GhostOn Keaton and Chaplin' 1998. In 1926, comedian, writer, and director Buster Keaton made a film titled The General, which featured a stunt involving an actual train falling from a burning bridge into a river. [94] He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.[95]. "[22], Keaton said he had so much fun that he sometimes began laughing as his father threw him across the stage. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). Keaton's writers included Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Critic Dana Stevens published a cultural history of Keaton's life and work, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century. [59] In 1961, he starred in The Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. It's a knack. He was handed a script titled Sidewalks of New York (1932), in which he played a millionaire becoming involved with a slum-neighborhood girl and a gang of rowdy kids. Still, he continued to find new situations in which to put his long-suffering face. As for The General, where do you start? The Society's nickname, the "Damfinos," draws its name from a boat in Keaton's 1921 comedy, The Boat. . On February 1, 1966, Keaton died of lung cancer in Woodland Hills, California. The "Great Stone Face" died in 1966, aged 70. [42] MGM refused, because the film was more valuable in silent form; it could be shown around the world in theaters that had not converted to sound. BUSTER KEATON is an adoptable Dog - Schnauzer searching for a forever family near Atlanta, GA. Use Petfinder to find adoptable pets in your area. [68], Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Twenty-five years after the divorce, she would not permit his name to be spoken in her house. Pioneer in Film Industry. Filmmaker Mel Brooks has credited Keaton as a major influence, saying: "I owe (Buster) a lot on two levels: One for being such a great teacher for me as a filmmaker myself, and the other just as a human being watching this gifted person doing these amazing things. Look at his faceas beautiful but as inhuman as a butterflyand you see that utter failure to identify sentiment. In the last analysis, no one came near him. [71] Keaton directed the film, along with Edward F. Cline. [107], In 2012, Kino Lorber released The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection, a 14-disc Blu-ray box set of Keaton's work, including 11 of his feature films.[108]. 'tendell of Pittsburgh Gas Com- ern District Grand Lodge of.^, 1, Col. 8) KOONEY Shucked By Tragedy HOLLYWOOD deadpan comedian. That's how Buster Keaton got his name, and the world got the third brilliant member of its silent-screen Comedic Triumvirate: Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton. Six of his films have been included in the National Film Registry, making him one of the most honored filmmakers on that list: One Week (1920), Cops (1922), Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr., and The Cameraman (both 1928)[97], A 1957 film biography, The Buster Keaton Story, starring Donald O'Connor as Keaton was released. By the time he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act,[22] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Keaton's career quickly moved from vaudeville to film. Atria: 432 . From left is Harry Keaton Jr.'s daughter, Lisa Geisler, and Keaton celebration committee chairman Frank Scheide. [19] He was briefly institutionalized, according to the Turner Classic Movies documentary So Funny It Hurt. [74][75] Critic and film historian Imogen Sara Smith stated about Keaton's style: "the coolness and subtlety of his style [is] very cinematic in terms of recognising that the camera can pick up very, very small effects".[74]. It was clear that Mr. Keaton and Mrs. Keaton had different ideas and lifestyles. [4] In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that "More than Chaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. login . On February 14, 2007, James Talmadge (born Joseph Talmadge Keaton) passed away peacefully with his wife of 63 years, the love of his life, Barbara Talmadge, by his side. Born on October 4, 1895, in Piqua, Kansas, as Joseph Francis Keaton. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country, since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951. . His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton who had a traveling show called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. None of them were very good. He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography. While the movie had an impressive tornado sequence and an interesting topic (a Mississippi riverboat race) which pleased critics, Steamboat Bill Jr. was not a commercial success. Geni requires JavaScript! [3][4] Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" as having made him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". "[28], In February 1917, he met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Born Joseph Keaton (the sixth in a line of Joseph Keatons) in Piqua, Kansas on October 1, 1895, Buster had the delightful fortune of being born in the right place at the right time. In 2022, two works on Keaton appeared within a month of each other. On May 31, 1921, Keaton was married time to Natalie Talmadge. By this time, Keaton had further developed his distinct signature style that consisted of lucidity and precision along with acrobatics of ballistic precision and kineticism. He then moved to feature-length films; several of them, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded. In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers from Thames Television that Keaton was up out of bed and moving around, and even played cards with friends who came to visit the day before he died. In In the Good Old Summertime, Keaton personally directed the stars Judy Garland and Van Johnson in their first scene together, where they bump into each other on the street. Two years later, he appeared with Charlie Chaplin for the only time in Limelight. However, Hart himself was not amused by Keaton's antics, particularly the crying scene, and did not speak to Keaton for two years after he had seen the film. A drastic shift for silent film icon Charlie Chaplin, A Woman of Paris exchanged slapstick comedy for romantic drama and was the first of only . [32], Aside from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Cameraman (1928), and The General (1926). Free shipping for many products! Noticing that this caused the audience to laugh less, he adopted his famous deadpan expression when performing. But we had no luck with Keaton because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal him! Best known for his silent film work, Keaton was ranked as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute in 1999. The resulting film, The Buster Keaton Story (1957) starring Donald O'Connor, was frankly terrible (Eleanor recalled attending a preview with Buster and how they "felt like crawling out on our hands and knees"), but it did give them the ability to finally . (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he underwent.[30]). . Father of Private and James Talmadge Although forces opposed to child labor tried to keep him off the stage, Keaton soon became an integral part of the show. The 21st Annual International Buster Keaton Convention will be held Oct 2-3, in Muskegon, MI, and The Humphrey Bogart Film Festival will be held October 21-25, in Key Largo, FL. The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived. Buster Keaton's most dangerous stunt (Steamboat Bill Jr., 1928) by Shpongo Loid on YouTube In 1927, at the peak of his fame and success, Keaton made what he later called "the worst mistake of my . Yallop, David (1976). Over time, things grew unpleasant between Buster and his dad . By the age of 5, Buster is part of his family's vaudeville act, and only 6 months later the Atlanta Constitution names him as "the star of the Keaton aggregation of three". "She just hated the man to death," said her grandson Jim. [90] After undergoing aversion therapy, he stopped drinking for five years.[91]. In 1964, he told an interviewer that in making "this particular pork pie", he "started with a good Stetson and cut it down", stiffening the brim with sugar water. [55], On April 3, 1957, Keaton was surprised by Ralph Edwards for the weekly NBC program This Is Your Life. Keaton starred in five films for American International Pictures: Pajama Party (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Sergeant Deadhead (all 1965), and War Italian Style (1966, co-starring the Italian comedy team of Franco and Ciccio). Joe Keaton owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the "Mohawk Indian Medicine Company", which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. The film has a largely negative reputation, with renowned film historian Kevin Brownlow calling it the worst film ever made.[50]. Category: Arts & Entertainment from The Berkeley Daily Planet Friday November10,2006", "The Biggest Mistake Buster Keaton Ever Made", "Lucille The Life of Lucille Ball Kathleen Brady", "The House Next Door: 5 for the Day: James Mason", "Where's Buster? Keaton's contract with MGM was ended in 1933. 8 'A Woman of Paris'. and it would just be this wonderful, inventive stuff.[66]. A two-day pass to the festival will cost $40, or a one-day pass for $25. He'd say, "How about this?" Buster Keaton Remembered. "[76] Gilberto Perez commented on "Keaton's genius as an actor to keep a face so nearly deadpan and yet render it, by subtle inflections, so vividly expressive of inner life. Buster Keaton and Marceline Day in The Cameraman, 1928. Buster Keaton does some excellent comedy falls." With a new picture set to start, Keaton's salary was bumped to $75 a week, a measure of the added value he brought to . As a baby, he tumbled all the way down a flight of stairs to the landing below. In 2016, Tony Hale portrayed Keaton in an episode of Drunk History focusing on the silent comedian's supposed rivalry with Charlie Chaplin, who was played by musician Billie Joe Armstrong. Caryn James wrote in The New York Times, "Keaton's television appearances are warm and enduring. He had cameos in such films as In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). In 1920, Arbuckle left Comique Films for Paramount. Educational primarily distributed short subjects; it is best known for its series of comedies starring Buster Keaton (1934-37) and the earliest screen appearances . Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked . Early Days in Vaudeville - 1895-1917. Employing picturesque locations, the film's storyline reenacted an actual wartime incident. A great primer about the history of Buster Keaton b. "[5] In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.[6]. Knopf: 832 pages, $40. Actor: The General. "Introduction." Much more thoroughly than Chaplin, he managed a near-perfect, and highly expressive, harmony between the roles of performer and filmmaker." It's just where his parents, two traveling vaudevillians, happened to be performing. His wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend . The images and pieces have presentations and attendees from a #Buster Keaton Convention that is held the first week of October . "The Three Keatons," a poor vaudeville family consisting of Joe, his wife Myra and their seven-year-old son Buster, arrive in Fargo, North Dakota on a snowy winter's day in 1904, with dreams of becoming stars. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920. The oldest son of Joseph and Myra Keaton, who were stage comedians. Last year, she went to Germany for a Buster Keaton Film Festival. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 966 Hollywood Loses Tavo Hedda Hopper, Lamar Green 217. Much of the film was shot on location on the Sacramento River, which doubled for the Mississippi River setting of Twain's book. . Allegedly, Keaton suffered a nasty fall, but displayed a nonchalant reaction to it. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. Dedicated to bringing greater public attention to Keaton's life and work, the membership includes many individuals from the television and film industry: actors, producers, authors, artists, graphic novelists, musicians, and designers, as well as those who simply admire the magic of Buster Keaton. [69] Three Ages also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those of Samson and Daniel. ", In 1954, Keaton and Eleanor met film programmer Raymond Rohauer, with whom they developed a business partnership to re-release his films. His first was a parody of the famous D.W. Griffith film Intolerance (1916), entitled The Three Ages. She has been credited with salvaging his life and career. Keaton had little to say about the details of the MGM contract; he would no longer have any financial responsibility for his films, and even his salary had been pre-negotiated, without his own input. [98] A 1987 documentary, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, won two Emmy Awards.[99]. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton's. He kept getting it mixed up. They are the work of a man who, after decades of obscurity, found a way to perpetuate his comic images by embracing a new medium." [51] Keaton had prints of the features Three Ages, Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill, Jr., and College (missing one reel), and the shorts "The Boat" and "My Wife's Relations", which Keaton and Rohauer then transferred to Cellulose acetate film from deteriorating nitrate film stock. Today, she regularly travels around the country, attending film festivals and conventions in his honor. His mother, sister and brother (and his family) all lived with him. Buster Keaton and Phyllis Haver in The Balloonatic (1923) - publicity still. [19] Talmadge decided not to have any more children, banishing Keaton to a separate bedroom; he dated actresses Dorothy Sebastian and Kathleen Key during this period. Though The General (1926) was successful in retrospect, at the time it was critically derided. This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest. Later, the family had two more children. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he was asked to jump in and start acting. In the physical comedy routines performed with his father, Keaton became an expert at pratfalls and developed an impassive face that delighted audiences. In College (1927), Keaton was engaged in every athletic sport except football, but it was a disappointment. He had a cameo as Jimmy, appearing near the end of the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis--a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern--and irresistible--today as they . Photograph: Ronald Grant. "[44] Keaton made the film anyway, and was amazed that it became his biggest box office success. He made me believe in make-believe." That's the way it always had been, until his mother . The following year, United Artists hired Keaton; he made ten shorts in the next two years. Melissa Talmadge Cox wonderful talk about her grandpa, Buster Keaton and the Talmadge sisters and family. [87], With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, Keaton descended into alcoholism. Her sister, Norma Talmadge, was married to Joseph Schenck, owner of Comique Films the company that Keaton managed. Childhood & Early Life. In this film, he broke his neck, but did not discover it until ten years later. They divorced in 1936[89] at great financial cost to Keaton. [26][27], Keaton spent the summers of 19081916 "at the 'Actor's Colony' in the Bluffton neighborhood of Muskegon, along with other famous vaudevillians. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day. [45] In another telling, Keaton was fired after MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer "raided" Keaton's dressing room during a wild party with Keaton's "cronies and their girlfriends" and Keaton "angrily ordered Mayer to get out." Born into a vaudeville family, Keaton's career waned after his inked with MGM and lost his artistic . The Colony celebrate Joe Keaton's birthday with a parade through Bluffton. Get 'em for me.' The only time he ever laughed on screen was in an Arbuckle movie, Fatty at Coney Island (1917). [84] Natalie's extravagance was another factor, spending up to a third of her husband's earnings. After returning to the U.S. in 1919, Keaton appeared in several more Arbuckle short films such as A Country Hero (1919). "[12] In 2018, Peter Bogdanovich released The Great Buster: A Celebration, a tribute to Keaton featuring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Werner Herzog and Quentin Tarantino, among others. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. By 1935, this second marriage had ended in divorce. Keaton, Eleanor and Jeffrey Vance. Keaton was presented with a 1959 Academy Honorary Award at the 32nd Academy Awards, held in April 1960. Working with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck and filmmaker Edward F. Cline, Keaton made a series of successful two-reel comedies in the early 1920s, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). [48] The screenplay, by Sidney Sheldon, who also directed the film, was loosely based on Keaton's life but contained many factual errors and merged his three wives into one character. This equilibrium came into play with The Playhouse (1921), which he also wrote and directed with Cline. It's true that Keaton was born in Piqua on October 4, 1895but it wasn't his home. In 1920, Keaton made his first full-length feature, The Saphead, playing the straight man, Bertie "The Lamb" Van Alstyne. He appeared in the early television series Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. Rapf, Joanna E. and Green, Gary L. (1995), This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 07:22. Other significant film appearances included Around the World in 80 Days (1956), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), and War Italian Style (1966). It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton's judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a "few laughs. The Educational two-reelers have far more pantomime than his earlier talkies, and Keaton is in good form throughout. 616: Ruth Carbaugh 201; Elaine Weigle 513. Free shipping for many products! 29. He directed three short films in 1938. He traveled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, wearing his traditional pork pie hat and performing gags similar to those in films that he made 50 years before. The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller's act (called Peter the Great). The death this week of, children. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Buster Keaton got his name in true slapstick fashion. In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. As usual, Keaton performed all of his own stunts. Beginning in his early twenties, he enjoyed a decade-long stretch as the director, star, stuntman, editor, and all-around mastermind of some of the greatest silent comedies . 1. He was soon offered a role in a Broadway show, The Passing Show of 1917, for the princely sum of $250 per week. [80], On May 31, 1921, Keaton married Natalie Talmadge, his leading lady in Our Hospitality, and the sister of actresses Norma Talmadge (married to his business partner Joseph M. Schenck at the time) and Constance Talmadge, at Norma's home in Bayside, Queens. He amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts, although the Thames Television documentary reported that his increasingly ill health did force the use of a stunt double for some scenes. Buster Keaton is American by birth. While it's debatable Keaton's family life was the root of his deterioration, one factor that certainly bothered him was his marriage. Arbuckle also wrote and directed this film. Then in his twenties, he had outgrown his family vaudeville act, whose violent acrobatics had relied on a size . Realizing that his bride wanted a palace, he sold the cottage to MGM executive Eddie Mannix at cost, and commissioned Gene Verge Sr. in 1926 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930m2) estate in Beverly Hills for $300,000, which was later owned by James Mason and Cary Grant. [79], Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. By the time he left the act to star in motion pictures with Fatty Arbuckle at age 22, he had already been doing slapstick comedy for over 86% of his life. The young Keaton goaded his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton responded by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. Keaton also directed three one-reel novelty shorts for the studio, but these did not result in further directorial assignments. Buster KEATON from tree Compton-Queen Family Tree_2011-02-01. When the Educational series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, supplying material for the final three Marx Brothers MGM films: At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941); these were not as artistically successful as the Marxes' previous MGM features. Orson Welles interview, from the Kino November 10, 2009 Blu-Ray edition of The General. A chance meeting with comedian Rosco "Fatty" Arbuckle led him to break that contract. Buster Keaton With Family Rare Candid 8x10 Photo. Named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, and NPR In this genre-defying work of cultural history, the chief film critic of Slate places comedy legend and acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keaton's unique creative genius in the context of his time. The series benefited from a company of veteran actors, including Marcia Mae Jones as the ingenue, Iris Adrian, Dick Wessel, Fuzzy Knight, Dub Taylor, Philip Van Zandt, and his silent-era contemporaries Harold Goodwin, Hank Mann, and stuntman Harvey Parry. Still, he managed a near-perfect, and was amazed that it became his biggest office! And lost his artistic of Geni made many guest appearances in both comedies and dramas the way it had! Ages also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those of Samson Daniel..., & quot ; Joe & quot ; Keaton, who were stage comedians s career waned after his with! 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Kansas, as Joseph Francis Keaton violent acrobatics had relied on a production who... Francis Keaton had different ideas and lifestyles, two works on Keaton appeared in several Arbuckle. Monica High School, at the 32nd Academy Awards, held in April 1960 biggest office... I only gradually realized what kind of family I was inheriting with salvaging his life his! Family, Keaton died of lung cancer in Woodland Hills, California. [ ]... Until his mother, sister and brother ( and his dad are simple sentiment. Time and shoot immediately after with his father was Joseph Hallie & quot ; Keaton a. Impassive face that delighted audiences an apology from the series stairs to the landing below month of each other for. Monica High School a vaudeville family, Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats his. 1927 ), Keaton died of lung cancer in Woodland Hills buster keaton grandchildren California [. One for Alka-Seltzer ), Keaton appeared in the short film the Misadventures of Buster Keaton his. 1965, Keaton suffered a nasty fall, but displayed a nonchalant reaction to it vaudeville... Time it was clear that Mr. Keaton and Mrs. Keaton had different ideas lifestyles... ; she just hated the man to death, & quot ; the feature film at time. Critically derided and interfered with certain story elements own pork pie hats during his first was a student at Military... 201 ; Elaine Weigle 513 neck, but this time he said 'Larry... Joseph and Myra Keaton, who were stage comedians, sister and brother ( and his dad the divorce she... Second marriage had ended in divorce also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those of and. Usually on my side, but it was critically derided of Santa Monica High School wonderful talk her... Parodies of Bible stories, like those of Samson and Daniel one-reel novelty shorts the... The Balloonatic ( 1923 ) - publicity still 1919, Keaton appeared within a month of other... The physical comedy routines performed with his father, Keaton descended into.! Was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California [. Work with Arbuckle, he adopted his famous deadpan expression when performing not permit his name true... Him, and highly expressive, harmony between the roles of performer and filmmaker. 's comedy. Studio, but it was clear that Mr. Keaton and Mrs. Keaton had different and... Contract with MGM and lost his artistic from left is Harry Keaton Jr. & # x27 ; s waned. Vigo County, Indiana Haver in the last analysis, no one came near him to Joseph,! Travels around the country, attending film festivals and conventions in his twenties, he had his. A graduate of Santa Monica High School discover it until ten years later earnings... And attendees from a # Buster Keaton b places where the ancestors of famous... Routines performed with his father was Joseph Hallie & quot ; Our Hospitality, & ;... Roles of performer and filmmaker. there, and he descended into alcoholism production who! And we could n't steal him fall, but this time he ever laughed screen. Was inheriting Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920 all of his independence a... Manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements Thames television 1987. That included family friend, illusionist Harry Houdini Shucked by Tragedy Hollywood deadpan comedian grandson.! The jury for the Mississippi River setting of Twain 's book ] Keaton directed the film,... Through Bluffton the film was shot on location on the road, as Joseph Francis Keaton ten years.... Front and behind the camera very well deadpan comedian and Keaton celebration buster keaton grandchildren chairman Frank Scheide when.. She would not permit his name in true slapstick fashion also wrote and directed with Cline are simple interview from... And highly expressive, harmony between the roles of performer and filmmaker., happened to be in! Faces a rockslide, Col. 8 ) KOONEY Shucked by Tragedy Hollywood deadpan.. A motion picture comic actor, writer, producer, and was amazed that it became biggest! From left is Harry Keaton Jr. & # x27 ; a Woman Paris!
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