His mother nicknamed him Jimmy. His first directorial effort, The High Sign, was a short that apparently did not work very well. The medium revitalized his career. No Beer? Today, she regularly travels around the country, attending film festivals and conventions in his honor. [20]:18, At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. TCM voice-over, October 2011, "Buster Keaton Month". Actor: The General. After the company shut its doors in 1937, Keaton was re-signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but only as a gagman. The spectacular stunt cost $42,000 to makea huge amount at the time. Buster Keaton in a still from the 1927 film The General. He was a motion picture comic actor, writer, producer, and director of the 1910s thru 1960s. "[40], When the studio began making talking films, Keaton was enthused about the new technology and wanted to make his next film, Spite Marriage, with sound. He also admitted to borrowing the idea of the changing room scene in The Cameraman for his own film Silent Movie. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Keaton suffered from several personal crises as well. With the exception of Seeing Stars, a minor publicity film produced in 1922, Limelight was the only time in which the two would ever appear together on film. His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend, illusionist Harry Houdini. He directed three short films in 1938. Keaton, Eleanor and Jeffrey Vance. (1933). 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. Knopf: 832 pages, $40. It was followed a month later by James Curtis' biography Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. [57] In August 1960, Keaton played mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of the Broadway musical Once Upon A Mattress. Rapf, Joanna E. and Green, Gary L. (1995), This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 07:22. He had a cameo as Jimmy, appearing near the end of the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. In his presentation for The General, filmmaker Orson Welles hailed Buster Keaton as "the greatest of all the clowns in the history of the cinema a supreme artist, and I think one of the most beautiful people who was ever photographed". 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. "She just hated the man to death," said her grandson Jim. [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. "It was as long as War and Peace," Keaton recalled. Sarah Porter , Joseph Judson, Isabeau de DAMPIERRE , John de FIENNES, Brangre de CASTILLE , Alfonse Ix de CASTILLE. [100] Hirschfeld said that modern film stars were more difficult to depict, that silent film comedians such as Laurel and Hardy and Keaton "looked like their caricatures". Two years later she changed their sons' last name to Talmadge. 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 . Joseph Frank Keaton (1895 - 1966) Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. Look at his faceas beautiful but as inhuman as a butterflyand you see that utter failure to identify sentiment. Director William Asher recalled: I always loved Buster Keaton. He would bring me bits and routines. Kansas, and was the firstborn of Joseph Keaton and Myra Cutler. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family. Anyone who thinks that the movie-within-a-movie is a recent conceit, the province of The Purple Rose of Cairo and Last Action Hero, should check out Sherlock Jr., a film in which Keaton dreams himself into another film: he strolls up the aisle of the theatre, hops into the action, and fights to keep up with the breakneck changes of scene. I n the shadow of a massive dune known as Pigeon Hill. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award in 1959. The audience roared. Although forces opposed to child labor tried to keep him off the stage, Keaton soon became an integral part of the show. BUSTER KEATON is an adoptable Dog - Schnauzer searching for a forever family near Atlanta, GA. Use Petfinder to find adoptable pets in your area. Later, the family had two more children. Since then, the Something's Gotta . By the time he was five, Buster was formally added to the family act and instantly made "The Three Keatons" a success. . Mini Bio (1) Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. [59] In 1961, he starred in The Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. In 2018 filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich released The Great Buster: A Celebration, a documentary about Keaton's life, career, and legacy. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to "Francis". This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest. Born the same year as the film industry in 1895, Buster Keaton began his career as the child star of a family slapstick act reputed . In 1920, The Saphead was released, in which Keaton had his first starring role in a full-length feature. Many people today don't know that the great silent comedy star Buster Keaton (whose birthday is today) started out as part of a family act with his parents, Joe and Myra. [61][62][63][64][65], Meanwhile, Keaton's big-screen career continued. It soon. "[20]:17 After this, Keaton's father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. MGM also forced Keaton to use a stunt double during some of the more dangerous scenes, something he had never done in his heyday, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. In 1925, Dal produced a collage titled The Marriage of Buster Keaton featuring an image of the comedian in a seated pose, staring straight ahead with his trademark boater hat resting in his lap. [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]. I Image: Wikimedia Commons. Keaton then moved to full-length features. 'tendell of Pittsburgh Gas Com- ern District Grand Lodge of.^, 1, Col. 8) KOONEY Shucked By Tragedy HOLLYWOOD deadpan comedian. Keaton had a hard time capturing the promise of Sherlock Jr. over the next few years. 4.47. Sgt. Keaton, Eleanor and Jeffrey Vance. 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 . Last year, she went to Germany for a Buster Keaton Film Festival. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger "prestige" pictures. But we had no luck with Keaton because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal him! [58] In 1960, he returned to MGM for the final time, playing a lion tamer in a 1960 adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. [105], Actor and stunt performer Johnny Knoxville cites Keaton as an inspiration when coming up with ideas for Jackass projects. that MGM fired him after the filming was completed, despite the film being a commercial hit. Keaton was convinced to star in a short film with Arbuckle, called The Butcher Boy (1917). 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 . He escaped a straitjacket with tricks learned from Harry Houdini. [79], Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. "[14], Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas,[15] the small town where his mother, Myra Keaton (ne Cutler), was when she went into labor. That same year, he was put under contract by Educational Films and returned to making shorts. By the time he was 9, his reputation as a performer had reached both coasts of the US, which Stevens' details alongside evolving child abuse and labor law reform in . Scriven claimed that she didn't know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. "[5] In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.[6]. A scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to stand still on a particular spot. His parents, Joe and Myra, were both veteran vaudevillian actors, and Keaton himself first began performing at the age of 3 when . Afterward, I only gradually realized what kind of family I was inheriting. This equilibrium came into play with The Playhouse (1921), which he also wrote and directed with Cline. "[34], It was an expensive misfire (the climactic scene of a locomotive plummeting through a burning bridge was the most expensive single shot in silent-film history),[35][36] and Keaton was never entrusted with total control over his films again. His first was a parody of the famous D.W. Griffith film Intolerance (1916), entitled The Three Ages. The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera (1936), featuring Keaton in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. At my studio they would have the characters I wanted in 10 minutes. He made his last starring feature, El Moderno Barba Azul (1946), in Mexico; the film was a low-budget production, and it may not have been seen in the United States until its release on VHS in the 1980s, under the title Boom in the Moon. However, Thalberg did allow Keaton to stage the gags, including long stretches of pantomime, and agreed to send a crew to Keaton's own mansion for exterior shots. "[31] The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. In 1914, he told the Detroit News: "The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. Keaton's other 1924 film, The Navigator, was shot on an ocean liner and directed with Donald Crisp. The one-story house, built in 1947, was bought with the $50,000 given to Buster by Paramount for the screen rights to his life story. Buster Keaton With Camera Rare Candid 8x10 Photo. Then in his twenties, he had outgrown his family vaudeville act, whose violent acrobatics had relied on a size . You had to requisition a toothpick in triplicate. [29] Keaton later said[where?] The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. While the first project he did for MGM ( The Cameraman in 1928) was rather good, as was his last silent film (Spite Marriage in 1929), Keaton's career was in decline. Ex-husband of Natalie Talmadge and Mae Elizabeth Keaton In the last analysis, no one came near him. Behind the camera, Keaton worked with a co-director, Eddie Cline, with whom he collaborated several times. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstick and farce made most of these films resemble White's famous Three Stooges shorts. United States, 1924. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. 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. The "Great Stone Face" died in 1966, aged 70. Two of Keaton's . In 1950, he played himself in Sunset Boulevard. Keaton was the world's whipping boy and made the world love him for it. In 1965, Keaton appeared in a short film written and shot by French existentialist playwright Samuel Beckett entitled simply Film. This was witnessed by the magician Harry Houdini (or, some say, actor George Pardey), who christened the hearty boy Buster. [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". He began performing with his parents as a three year old in the act 'The Three Keatons', first . The seemingly indestructible man married actress Natalie Talmadge in 1921, though wedded bliss did not last long. [55], On April 3, 1957, Keaton was surprised by Ralph Edwards for the weekly NBC program This Is Your Life. Unfortunately, his one attempt at a strong dramatic role, the lead in the weak biopic The Buster Keaton Story (1957) proved to be . By Kelly Braun. Buster William Keaton Sr. from tree Keaton Family Tree. In 2022, two works on Keaton appeared within a month of each other. [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 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton. 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. New York: St. Martin's Press. Keaton made Steamboat Bill Jr., his last film with Buster Keaton Productions, in 1928. The first was Sherlock Jr., in which a daydreaming projectionist who longs to be a detective becomes part of the movie he is showing. In Our Hospitality (1923), a film about a mountain feud, Keaton shot both a novel train scene and waterfall scene on location. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he was asked to jump in and start acting. "stuntmen don't get you laughs," Keaton had said.[43]. By Dana Stevens. 33. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton's later reputation as "The Great Stone Face", he often smiled and even laughed in them. . 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. ", In 1954, Keaton and Eleanor met film programmer Raymond Rohauer, with whom they developed a business partnership to re-release his films. Born the same year as the film industry in 1895, Buster Keaton began his career as the child star of a family slapstick act reputed to be the most violent in vaudeville. in Piqua, Kansas, USA , United States, Died on February 01, 1966 His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. [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. It was clear that Mr. Keaton and Mrs. Keaton had different ideas and lifestyles. Actor James Mason had bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classic The Boat. Buster Keaton got his name in true slapstick fashion. This combination of talents proved felicitous when Keaton inevitably aged out of the family act and started making movies. The following year, United Artists hired Keaton; he made ten shorts in the next two years. once in English, once in Spanish, and once in either French or German, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills), "Deadpan but alive to the future: Buster Keaton the revolutionary", "The 50 Greatest Directors and Their 100 Best Movies", "AFI Recognizes the 50 Greatest American Screen Legends", "The General: the greatest comedy of all time? [24] Despite tangles with the law, Keaton was a rising star in the theater. 616: Ruth Carbaugh 201; Elaine Weigle 513. 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 . Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. Peter Hogue wrote in Film Comment, "Keaton is astonishing not only for what he does as an actor within the frame, but also for what he does with frame in relation to the actor. Rami Malek and Buster Keaton Samir Hussein/WireImage/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images. Service.[73]. Wrong username or password. [60], In 1961, Keaton appeared in promotional films for Maryvale, a housing development in the western part of Phoenix. In 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast. Like Arbuckle before him, Keaton began directing films that he appeared in. He was named Joseph to continue a tradition on his father's side (he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton)[1] and Frank for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of his parents' union. Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. Csblnc Flashback Open.mov. Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. His career declined when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and lost his artistic independence. [7] The General is viewed as his masterpiece: Orson Welles considered it "the greatest comedy ever madeand perhaps the greatest film ever made". Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including in a 1964 interview with the CBC's Telescope. James Curtis. 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. $49.99 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. Keaton also appeared in a comedy routine about two inept stage musicians in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (released in 1952), recalling the vaudeville of The Playhouse. She has been credited with salvaging his life and career. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. "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. Who are Buster Keaton grandchildren? [22] Decades later, Keaton said that he was never hurt by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. He was a student at Blackfox Military Academy and a graduate of Santa Monica High School. Two years later, he appeared with Charlie Chaplin for the only time in Limelight. 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? The grandchildren delighted in deliberately mentioning Buster's name. [40] In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-lyses. In The Playhouse (1921), he parodied his contemporary Thomas H. Ince, Hart's producer, who indulged in over-crediting himself in his film productions. 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. In this film, he broke his neck, but did not discover it until ten years later. By 1923, Keaton was making full-length features. Harry Keaton Jr., nephew of Buster Keaton, talks about how famiy members have reunited at various Keaton festivals during a panel discussion featuring Keaton family members in person and appearing virtually on a screen. Buster had broken up his family's vaudeville act, "The Three Keatons", at the age of 21, when his father's drinking made their rough-and-tumble act too difficult and dangerous. [52], From 1950 through 1964, Keaton made around 70 guest appearances on television variety shows, including those of Ed Sullivan and Garry Moore. Keaton also directed three one-reel novelty shorts for the studio, but these did not result in further directorial assignments. [56] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. After her step-grandmother Eleanor died in 1998, Cox became the family's Goodwill Ambassador on behalf of her Grandpa Buster. During this period, he made another film in England, The Invader (released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).[45]. "[41] MGM wanted only Keaton the star, Keaton the creator was considered a waste of time and money because "in the time it took him to develop a project, he could have appeared in two or three pictures set up by the studio's production staff. In 1920, Keaton made his first full-length feature, The Saphead, playing the straight man, Bertie "The Lamb" Van Alstyne. Natalie would glare and fly into a rage. With complete artistic control, he developed his own working methodology and made about two pictures per year. [80] The hats were often destroyed during Keaton's wild film antics; some were given away as gifts and some were snatched by souvenir hunters. He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode "Now You See It, Now You Don't". Though this was a partnership, Cline later acknowledged that Keaton did much of the work. 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. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. 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. Arbuckle also wrote and directed this film. 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