-Quick facts-
Name: Buster Keaton
Birth name: Joseph Frank Keaton VI
Nickname: The Great Stone Face Malic
Born: 4 October, 1895, Piqua, Kansas, USA
Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m)
Spouse: Natalie Talmadge (31 May 1921 - 25 July 1932) (divorced) 2 children
Mae Scriven (8 January 1933 - 1936) (divorced)
Eleanor Norris (May 1940 - 1 February 1966) (his death)
Died: 1 February 1966, Los Angeles, California, USA
Cause of death: Lung cancer
-Biography-
When at six months 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 age 21 his father was so alcoholic 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. The General (1927), his favorite, was one of the last films over which he had artistic control. In 1928 he signed with MGM and his fame dwindled. By 1932 he was divorced, reduced to co-starring roles and became an alcoholic. In 1935 he entered a mental hospital (by 1937 he had been re-hired by MGM as a $100-a-week gagman). 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 at 70 years of age.
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