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Buster Keaton
b. Joseph Frank Keaton

Born: Oct 04, 1895 in Pickway, Kansas
Died: Feb 01, 1966 in Woodland Hills, California
Occupation: Actor, Director, Writer
Active: teens-'40s, '60s
Major Genres: Comedy
Career Highlights: The General, Sherlock Jr., The Navigator
First Major Screen Credit: The Saphead (1920)

Although Buster Keaton was known as "Tribute to the Great Stone Face" this was a misnomer. Keaton actually had one of the most expressive faces in silent film. His reactions to the curious events around him left no doubt as to how he was feeling. Keaton just didn't need to smile or laugh - that was the audience's job.
Keaton was one of the silent era's five great comedians. Only three are well remembered today: Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Keaton (the other two are Harry Langdon, whose fame was brief, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle whose career was ruined by scandal in 1921). Buster was the least successful financially of the "big three," but today many people revere him above Chaplin, who was immensely popular in his time. Audiences of the 1920s found Keaton's humor -- offbeat, occasionally macabre and often surreal -- hard to grasp. Ironically, those very same qualities that confounded silent filmgoers are what make Keaton's films so popular today. Although they are still very funny, Chaplin and Lloyd's point of views are very much of their era; Keaton's humor is timeless.

Buster was born Joseph Frank Keaton VI on October 4, 1895, while his parents, medicine show performers, were touring the country. By the age of four, the boy - who, according to his father, was nicknamed Buster by magician Harry Houdini [although that may have been one of his father's tall tales - ed.] - had become part of the act. The Three Keatons reached the heights of vaudeville, primarily because of the rough and tumble acrobatics performed by Buster and his dad. By 1917 the act had split up, and Keaton, now a young man of 21, went to work for Roscoe Arbuckle, who had just started up his own production company. Keaton learned everything he needed to know about comic filmmaking from Arbuckle; combined with his already finely-honed athletic abilities, he created an outstanding onscreen presence.

By 1921, Keaton had a production company himself; the first two-reeler he released, One Week, was a huge hit and one of the top grossing films of the year. He proceeded to make two-reelers for the next couple of years -- nearly all of them classics -- and began working on features in 1923. Many are famous for their props and tricks; in Sherlock, Jr. Keaton plays a projectionist who leaps into the movie screen to become part of the film (Woody Allen stole this idea for Purple Rose of Cairo). In The Navigator, he uses a whole steamer as a prop -- and a very funny one, too. Keaton's co-star in his greatest film, The General, is not the girl, played by Marion Mack, but a train called The General. This thrilling and hilarious film about the Civil War also features sets that are historically accurate; Keaton was a stickler for detail. Keaton's brilliance carried on throughout the whole silent era; his next-to-last silent film, The Cameraman, is one of his very best.

Why did Keaton's career go downhill so quickly when talkies came in? It had nothing to do with his talent. After being autonomous for most of the 1920s, he found himself under contract to MGM, a studio known for its streamlined productions. Many creative types had a hard time flourishing under the MGM machine, and Keaton was one of them. (To be fair, it is worthwhile noting that those who could play by MGM's rules, like George Cukor, were still able to create classic films). Keaton bristled under the studio's demands and hated the fact that no one listened to his suggestions. He drank too much and had a nervous breakdown. In 1933, the studio had had enough, and Keaton was fired. He spent the rest of the 1930s appearing in low-budget shorts and poorly-made, bargain-basement features. Other than a couple of cameo appearances, Keaton faded into oblivion for almost two decades, but a film preservationist rediscovered him, and before the end of his life in 1966, Keaton's silent films were being seen by a new generation of filmgoers. Keaton, modest to the end, never understood what the fuss was all about. "You can't be a genius in slap shoes and a flat hat," he liked to say. He was wrong.

QUOTES

"I don't act, anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind."

"I'm so sorry I fell down."

"Everybody at Metro was in my gag department, including Irving Thalberg. 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."

"We didn't stick to any format. We would just get an idea, and once you started on the idea it would lend itself to gags and natural trouble of any kind. There was no format."

"Is Hollywood the cruelest city in the world? Well, it can be. New York can be that, too. You can be a Broadway star here one night, and something happens, and out--nobody knows you on the street. They forget you ever lived. It happens in Hollywood, too."

"From the time I was 7 or 8 years old, we were the roughest knockabout act that ever was in the history of the theater, not only in the United States but all over Europe as well. We used to get arrested every other week--that is, the old man would get arrested. The first crack out of the box here in New York state, the Keith office raised my age two years, because the original law said that no child under 5 could even look at the audience, let alone do anything. So they said I was 7. And the law read that a child can't do acrobatics, can't walk a wire, can't juggle--a lot of those things--but there was nothing said in the law that you can't kick him in the face or throw him through a piece of scenery. On that technicality, we were allowed to work, although we'd get called into court every other week, see."

"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!"

Filmography

The Butcher Boy (1917) A Reckless Romeo (1917) The Rough House (1917) His Wedding Night (1917) Oh Doctor! (1917) Coney Island (1917) A Country Hero (1917) Out West (1918) The Bell Boy (1918) Moonshine (1918) Good Night, Nurse! (1918) The Cook (1918) Back Stage (1919) The Hayseed (1919) The Garage (1920) One Week (1920) The Round-Up (1920) (uncredited) The Saphead (1920) Convict 13 (1920) The Scarecrow (1920) Neighbors (1921) The Haunted House (1921) Hard Luck (1921) The High Sign (1921) The Goat (1921) The Playhouse (1921) The Boat (1921) The Paleface (1922) Cops (film) (1922) My Wife's Relations (1922) The Blacksmith (1922) The Frozen North (1922) Daydreams (1922) The Electric House (1922) The Balloonatic (1923) The Love Nest (1923) Three Ages (1923) Our Hospitality (1923) Sherlock Jr. (1924) The Navigator (1924) Seven Chances (1925) The Iron Mule (1925) (uncredited) Go West (1925) Battling Butler (1926) The General (1927) College (1927) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) The Cameraman (1928) Spite Marriage (1929) The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) Free and Easy (1930) Doughboys (1930) Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) The Slippery Pearls (1931) Sidewalks of New York (1931) Casanova wider Willen (1931) The Passionate Plumber (Plombier amoureux, Le) (1932) Speak Easily (1932) What! No Beer? (1933) The Gold Ghost (1934)

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