Joseph Frank "Buster"Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966)[1] was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker.[2] He is best known for hissilent films during the 1920s, in which he performedphysical comedy and inventivestunts. He frequently maintained a stoic,deadpan facial expression that became his trademark and earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".[3][4]
Keaton's career declined after 1928, when he signed withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer and lost his artistic independence. His first wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. He was fired from MGM in 1933, ending his career as a leading man in feature films. He recovered in the 1940s, marryingEleanor Norris and working as an honored comic performer until the end of his life. During this period, he made cameos inBilly Wilder'sSunset Boulevard (1950),Charlie Chaplin'sLimelight (1952), and a variety of television programs. He earned anAcademy Honorary Award in 1959.
CriticRoger 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".[4] In 1996,Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, stating that "his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and a spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur."[10] In 1999, theAmerican Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.[11]
Keaton as a child in vaudeville (c. 1897)Six-year-old Keaton and his parents Myra and Joe Keaton, in a publicity photo for their vaudeville act, The Three KeatonsBuster Keaton's draft card; "motion picture performer" employed byRoscoe Arbuckle
Keaton was born into avaudeville family inPiqua, Kansas,[12] the small town that his mother,Myra Keaton (née Cutler), was visiting at the time. 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. His father wasJoseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton who had a traveling show called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and soldpatent medicine on the side.[13][14][15] According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal,[16] Keaton acquired the nickname Buster at the age of 18 months. After the child fell down a long flight of stairs without injury, an actor friend named George Pardey remarked, "Gee whiz, he's a regular buster!"[17]: 17 After this, Keaton's father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including in a 1964 interview with theCBC'sTelescope.[18] In Keaton's retelling, he was six months old when the incident occurred, andHarry Houdini gave him the nickname (though the family did not get to know Houdini until later).[17]: 18
At the age of 3, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. He first appeared on stage in 1899 inWilmington, Delaware. The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Myra played the saxophone to one side, while Joe and Keaton performed center stage, both wearing slapsoles, bald-headed wigs and "Irish" beards. 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. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations ofchild abuse and, occasionally, arrest. However, Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones. He was eventually billed as "The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged", and the overall act as "The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage".[19] 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. In 1914, he told theDetroit News: "The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment."[19]
Keaton said he had so much fun that he sometimes began laughing as his father threw him across the stage. Noticing that this caused the audience to laugh less, he adopted his famous deadpan expression when performing.[20] The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day.[21] Despite tangles with the law, Keaton was a rising and relatively well-paid star in the theater. He stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother. By the time he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act,[19] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Keaton's career quickly moved from vaudeville to film.[22]
Keaton spent the summers of 1908–1916 "at the 'Actor's Colony' in the Bluffton neighborhood ofMuskegon, Michigan, along with other famous vaudevillians."[25]
In February 1917, he metRoscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at theTalmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract toJoseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Keaton also had reservations about the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he was asked to jump in and start acting. Keaton was such a natural in his first film,The Butcher Boy, he was hired on the spot. At the end of the day, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room where he dismantled and reassembled it by morning.[26] Keaton later said[where?] that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckleshorts, running into 1920. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton's later reputation as "The Great Stone Face", he often smiled and even laughed in them. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, and Keaton was one of the few people, along withCharlie Chaplin, to defend Arbuckle's character during accusations that he was responsible for the death of actressVirginia Rappe. (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he underwent.[27])
In 1920,The Saphead was released, in which Keaton had his first starring role in a full-length feature film. It was based on a successful play,The New Henrietta, which had already been filmed once, under the titleThe Lamb, withDouglas Fairbanks playing the lead. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. He made a series of 19two-reel comedies, includingOne Week (1920),The Playhouse (1921),Cops (1922), andThe Electric House (1922). Keaton then moved to full-length features.
Keaton, who did his own stunt work, in a potentially life-threatening scene fromSteamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
Keaton's writers includedClyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, andJean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. Comedy directorLeo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of makingslapstick comedies, said, "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't stealhim!"[28] The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. During the railroad water-tank scene inSherlock Jr., Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water fell on him from a water tower, but he did not realize it until years afterwards. A scene fromSteamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to stand still on a particular spot. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. The stunt required precision, because the prop facade weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of clearance around Keaton's body. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career.[29]
Aside fromSteamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films includeThree Ages (1923),Our Hospitality (1923),The Navigator (1924),Sherlock Jr. (1924),Seven Chances (1925),The Cameraman (1928), andThe General (1926).The General, set during theAmerican Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains,[30] including an epic locomotive chase. Employing picturesque locations, the film's storyline reenacted anactual wartime incident. Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton's greatest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. 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".[31]
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),[32][33] and Keaton was never entrusted with total control over his films again. His distributor,United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Keaton endured this treatment for two more feature films, and then exchanged his independent setup for employment at Hollywood's biggest studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Keaton's loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films (although he was interested in making the transition) and mounting personal problems, and his career in the early sound era was hurt as a result.[34]
Keaton's last three features had been produced and released independently, under Keaton's control, and fell short of financial expectations at the box office. In 1928 film executiveNicholas Schenck arranged a deal withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer for Keaton's services. 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. Charlie Chaplin andHarold Lloyd advised him against making the move, cautioning that he would lose his independence.[35] But, given Schenck's desire to keep things "in the family" and Keaton's having to admit that his independent pictures hadn't done well, Keaton agreed to sign with MGM. He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography.[36]
Welcomed to the studio byIrving Thalberg, with whom he initially had a relationship of mutual admiration,[37] Keaton realized too late that thestudio system MGM represented would severely limit his creative input. The giant studio was run along strict factory lines, with everything planned and budgeted in advance. The first of MGM's Keaton films wasThe Cameraman (1928), and Keaton sensed trouble immediately when he saw the script. "It was as long asWar and Peace," Keaton recalled. "I took out 40 useless characters and a couple of subplots. These guys didn't realize—theystill don't realize—that the best comedies are simple. I said, 'I'd like to do something with a drunk and a fat lady and a kid. Get 'em for me.' At my studio they would have the characters I wanted in 10 minutes. But not MGM. You had to requisition a toothpick in triplicate. I just stood there, and everybody is hassling."[38] 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."[37]
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.[39] 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. Also, soundstages were then at a premium, and MGM usually reserved them for dramatic productions. MGM also forced Keaton to use a stunt double during some of the more dangerous scenes to protect its investment, something he had never done in his heyday: "Stuntmen don't get you laughs," Keaton had said.[40]
In the first Keaton pictures with sound, he and his fellow actors would shoot each scene three times:once in English, once in Spanish, and once in either French or German. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. This is discussed in the TCM documentaryBuster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt, with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times.
Keaton kept trying to persuade his bosses to let him do things his way. Production head Irving Thalberg would not permit Keaton to create a script from scratch because the studio had already purchased a stage property dating from 1917,Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, at the suggestion ofLawrence Weingarten, who was Thalberg's brother-in-law and Keaton's producer. ("We were desperate. We didn't know what to do," recalled Weingarten.[41]) 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. Keaton's relative freedom during this project resulted in a better than usual film. "Apart from its exceptional quality," writes biographer James Curtis, "the big takeaway fromParlor, Bedroom and Bath was its extraordinary commercial success. Performing better at the box office than any of Keaton's other MGM talkies, it pulled in worldwide rentals of $985,000 [$20,694,850 in 2024]. With a yield [net profit] of $299,000 [$6,281,990 in 2024], it became the most profitable of all of Buster Keaton's features, silent or sound."[42] Curtis notes that it was also the only one of his MGM features that came in under budget and ahead of schedule.
The next project confirmed Keaton's fears about studio interference. He was handed a script titledSidewalks of New York (1931), in which he played a millionaire becoming involved with a slum-neighborhood girl and a gang of rowdy kids. Keaton thought the premise was totally unsuitable, and was uncomfortable with his directorsJules White and Zion Myers, who emphasized blunt slapstick. "I went over (Weingarten's) head and appealed to Irving Thalberg to help get me out of the assignment. Irving was usually on my side, but this time he said, 'Larry likes it. Everybody else in the studio likes the story. You are the only one who doesn't.' In the end, I gave up like a fool and said 'what the hell?' Who was I to say I was right and everyone was wrong?"[43] The film's emphasis on obvious slapstick made it unsuitable for the usual, prestigious Broadway premiere -- it opened simultaneously in two New York side-street theaters -- but the less discriminating audiences in small towns across America flocked to the film, resulting in an ultimate success.
MGM had been featuring comical musicianCliff Edwards in Keaton's films. The studio replaced Edwards, who had substance-abuse problems, with nightclub comedianJimmy Durante. The laconic Keaton and the rambunctious Durante offered enough contrast to function as a team, resulting in three very successful films:Speak Easily (1932),The Passionate Plumber (1932), andWhat! No Beer? (1933).
In March 1932 studio chiefLouis B. Mayer's office requested Keaton to report for work on a Saturday afternoon, to go through the motions of filming a scene for studio visitors. Keaton already had plans to attend a local college-baseball championship, where he was to be the home-team mascot. He sent his regrets to Mayer's office and kept his date at the ball game, only to receive a warning from Mayer the following Tuesday, suspending his pay until he resumed working.
Keaton's behavior had become erratic by 1932. He was despondent over working conditions at the studio, and over his wife's antagonism toward him at home. This affected his films; he was sometimes visibly intoxicated on- and off-camera. "I got to the stage where I didn't give a darn whether school kept or not, and then I started drinking too much," Keaton told interviewer Tony Thomas. "When I found out that they could write stories and material better than I could anyway, what was the use of my fighting with them?" The demoralized Keaton couldn't turn to production chief Irving Thalberg for support, because Thalberg was then on a medical leave that lasted eight months. This left Louis B. Mayer temporarily in sole charge of the studio, which made Keaton's standing at MGM even more fragile. Keaton's absences were costing the company $3,000 a day ($70,000 a day in 2025).
The last straw came when Mayer "raided" Keaton's dressing room during a wild party with Keaton's "cronies and their girlfriends". MGM stafferSam Marx remembered the outcome: "Buster ordered him out of the trailer, and Mayer ordered him out of the studio."[44] Mayer couldn't oust him immediately, because Keaton's latest picture wasn't yet finished. Immediately after Keaton completed retakes onWhat! No Beer?, he was fired "for good and sufficient cause" in a letter signed by Mayer on February 2, 1933.
Keaton had been considered to appear in the studio's all-star successGrand Hotel, only to have his role of the consumptive Kringelein taken byLionel Barrymore. AsWhat! No Beer? was nearing completion, Keaton—"sober, shaved, and calm" as Keaton told his biographerRudi Blesh—pitched an idea to Irving Thalberg. He wanted to make a feature-length parody ofGrand Hotel with an all-comedy cast: himself in the Lionel Barrymore role,Jimmy Durante in theJohn Barrymore role,Marie Dressler in theGreta Garbo role,Polly Moran in theJoan Crawford role,Henry Armetta in theJean Hersholt role,Edward Everett Horton in theLewis Stone role, andLaurel and Hardy sharing theWallace Beery role. Edward Sedgwick would be directing.[45] Keaton called his versionGrand Mills Hotel (after the Mills Hotel, aBowery flophouse). Thalberg was hesitant about burlesquing the dignified studio's own work but, seeing Keaton's obvious disappointment, said he'd think about it.
After Louis B. Mayer had fired Keaton, Thalberg returned to the studio and persuaded Mayer that Keaton was still valuable to the company. Thalberg tried to resurrect Keaton's MGM career by offering to go ahead with theGrand Hotel satire, now retitledGland Hotel. Keaton, still furious at Mayer, refused to return to the studio and Mayer was not about to apologize. So ended Buster Keaton's starring career in feature films.
In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris,Le Roi des Champs-Élysées; it was not released in the United States. During this period, he made another film in England,The Invader. MGM needed a certain number of British-made films to comply with Britain'sCinematograph Films Act of 1927: if American studios wanted to release their films in Britain, they would have to accept and distribute a certain quota of British films. MGM distributed the Keaton film in England to satisfy the quota, but declined to release it in the United States, because the studio had already terminated Keaton's employment and was no longer promoting him as one of its stars.The Invader was acquired by American film importer J. H. Hoffberg in October 1935, and he retitled itAn Old Spanish Custom.[46] Hoffberg released the film in the United States on the "states-rights" market,[47] where independent exchanges bought regional rights to the film and offered it to local theaters in their territories. Because Hoffberg charged much lower rates than MGM had for a Buster Keaton feature, many independent companies grabbed it. Beginning in December 1935,An Old Spanish Custom played on double-feature programs in major theaters.[48]
In 1934, Buster Keaton made a screen comeback in two-reel comedies forEducational Pictures. Most of these 20-minute shorts 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.[49] Keaton had a free hand in staging the films, within the studio's budgetary limits and using its staff writers. The Educational two-reelers have far more pantomime than his earlier talkies, and Keaton is in good form throughout. The high point in the Educational series isGrand Slam Opera (1936), featuring Keaton in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant.
The Educational series was very well received by theater owners and movie audiences, and Keaton was the studio's most important comedian. He was also its most expensive comedian (earning $2,500 per film, equal to $59,774 in 2025), and when Educational was forced to economize in 1937, the company could no longer afford to maintain two studios. Educational closed its Hollywood studio, thus forfeiting Keaton's services, and kept its cheaper New York studio going. The company replaced Keaton with New York-based stage starWillie Howard.[50]
After Keaton's Educational series lapsed, he returned to MGM as a gag writer, supplying material for the final threeMarx Brothers MGM films:At the Circus (1939),Go West (1940), andThe Big Store (1941); these were not as artistically successful as the Marxes' previous MGM features. Keaton also directed three one-reel novelty shorts for the studio, but these did not result in further directorial assignments.
In 1939,Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in two-reel comedies; he filmed two at a time over two years. These 10 films comprise his last series as a starring comedian. Columbia's short-subject comedians were generally paid a flat fee of $500 per film. Keaton, considered exceptional, was hired at double the usual rate.[51] The director was usuallyJules White, whose emphasis onslapstick andfarce made most of these films resemble White's famousThree Stooges shorts. White sometimes paired Keaton with asecond banana: either veteran comicMonty Collins or raucous comic dancerElsie Ames. The insistent White directed Keaton whenever possible – to Keaton's mild annoyance – and only two Keaton shorts did without White's services because they were filmed on location, away from the studio.[52] Those remaining two shorts were directed byDel Lord, a former director forMack Sennett. Keaton's personal favorite was the series' debut,Pest from the West, directed by Lord; it was a shorter, tighter remake of Keaton's little-viewed 1935 featureThe Invader. Trade critics loved it.Film Daily raved: "One of the funniest shorts of the season. In fact, of any season. It just goes to prove that this Buster Keaton feller is a natural boxoffice gold mine that is not being mined. When a comedy shown cold in a projection room can make trade press critics howl in their seats, then you can bet your mortgaged theater that it's FUNNY [emphasis theirs]."[53]
Moviegoers and exhibitors welcomed Keaton's Columbia comedies;[54] and when Columbia began reissuing older comedies to theaters in 1948, Keaton'sPest from the West was chosen to launch the "Comedy Favorites" series ("A 1939 Buster Keaton film and one of his funniest," notedBoxoffice. "It is good to see Buster back.")[55] Keaton's Columbia shorts came back to theaters from 1948 to 1952, and again from 1962 to 1964. Author John McElwee reports the boxoffice figures: "Pest from the West, the first series entry in 1939, brought back domestic rentals of $23,000, and subsequent ones tended to hover around that approximate figure (Nothing But Pleasure did $24,000,General Nuisance got $26,000). Columbia also realized profits from reissues of the Keatons after the war.The Spook Speaks was back for the 1949–50 season, and picked up $24,200, this in addition to the $28,500 it had realized on its initial run."[56]
Keaton's personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage to MGM dancerEleanor Norris, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films. Resuming his daily job as an MGM gag writer, he provided material forRed Skelton[57] and gave help and advice toLucille Ball.[58]
Keaton accepted various character roles in both "A" and "B" features. 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 videotape in 1986, under the titleBoom in the Moon. The film has a largely negative reputation, with renowned film historianKevin Brownlow calling it theworst film ever made.[59]
Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger "prestige" pictures. He had cameos in such films asIn the Good Old Summertime (1949),Sunset Boulevard (1950), andAround the World in 80 Days (1956). InIn the Good Old Summertime, Keaton personally directed the starsJudy Garland andVan Johnson in their first scene together, where they bump into each other on the street. Keaton invented comedy bits where Johnson keeps trying to apologize to a seething Garland, but winds up messing up her hairdo and tearing her dress.
Keaton also appeared in a comedy routine about two inept stage musicians inCharlie Chaplin'sLimelight (released in 1952), recalling the vaudeville ofThe Playhouse. With the exception ofSeeing Stars, a minor publicity film produced in 1922,Limelight was the only time in which the two would ever appear together on film.
Keaton getting his foot stuck in railroad tracks atKnott's Berry Farm in 1956
In 1949, comedianEd Wynn invited Keaton to appear on hisCBS Television comedy-variety show,The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast.Kinescope film prints were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country, since there was no transcontinentalcoaxial cable until September 1951. Reaction was strong enough for a local Los Angeles station to offer Keaton his own show, also broadcast live (The Buster Keaton Show, 1950).
Producer Carl Hittleman mounted a new series, again titledThe Buster Keaton Show, in 1951. This was an attempt to recreate the first series on film, allowing the program to be broadcast nationwide. The series benefited from a company of veteran actors, includingMarcia Mae Jones as the ingenue,Iris Adrian,Dick Wessel,Fuzzy Knight,Dub Taylor,Philip Van Zandt, and his silent-era contemporariesHarold Goodwin,Hank Mann, and stuntmanHarvey Parry. Keaton's wife Eleanor also was seen in the series (notably as Juliet to Keaton's Romeo in a little-theater vignette). Despite the hardworking cast and crew, the series was unsuccessful and only 13 half-hour episodes were filmed. Producer Hittleman audaciously reissued these same episodes in 1952 as though they were entirely new, with the series now titledLife with Buster Keaton.Variety reporter Fred Hift reviewed it as a series premiere, noting that it was filmed without a studio audience: the "lack of studio laughter weakened the climax of several of its acts."[60] The producers fashioned a theatrical, hourlong feature film from the series, intended for the European market:The Misadventures of Buster Keaton was released on April 29, 1953 by British Lion,[61] and it began playing on American television in September 1953. "Roughly reproduced slapstick museum piece, it's most likely to amuse those too young to remember the real thing," reported Josh Billings in London'sKinematograph Weekly.[62] American television syndicators agreed, and marketedLife with Buster Keaton as a children's show. It continued to play for years afterward on small, low-budget stations.
Keaton as a time traveler in the 1961Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time"
Keaton's periodic television appearances during the 1950s and 1960s helped to revive interest in his silent films. He appeared in the early television seriesFaye Emerson's Wonderful Town. Whenever a TV show wanted to simulate silent-movie comedy, Keaton answered the call and guested in such successful series asThe Ken Murray Show,You Asked for It,The Garry Moore Show, andThe Ed Sullivan Show. Well into his fifties, Keaton successfully recreated his old routines, including one stunt in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor.Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you.' He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it—ithurt—but you had to care enough not to care."
Critic and writerJames Agee was key to reviving interest in Buster Keaton with his article about silent comedians inLife magazine in 1949,Comedy's Greatest Era.[63]In 1954, Buster and Eleanor met movie-theater managerRaymond Rohauer, with whom they developed a business partnership to re-release his films. ActorJames Mason had bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classicThe Boat.[64] Keaton had prints of the featuresThree Ages,[41]Sherlock Jr.,Steamboat Bill, Jr., andCollege (missing one reel), and the shortsThe Boat andMy Wife's Relations. Rohauer instructed Keaton to approach Mason for the films, but Mason -- reasoning that Keaton didn't have the money to preserve the films himself -- decided to donate them to theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[65]
Rohauer then formed a new legal entity, Buster Keaton Productions, in September 1958. This gave Rohauer legal access to the old films at the Academy. Rohauer had not reckoned on Leopold Friedman, sole surviving trustee of the original Buster Keaton Productions, Inc. of the 1920s. Friedman was now general counsel and secretary for Loew's Incorporated, MGM's parent company, and he represented MGM's interests and the stockholders of the still functioning Buster Keaton Productions, Inc. MGM still held the copyrights on six Keaton features and seven short subjects produced by Joe Schenck.[66] Rohauer and Friedman waged legal battles for control of the Keaton films -- in many cases Rohauer had the film prints but no rights, while Friedman had the rights but no film prints. The matter was finally settled in 1971, when Rohauer paid Friedman and the stockholders $50,000 for their percentage in the production company.[67]
On April 3, 1957, Buster Keaton was surprised byRalph Edwards for the weekly NBC programThis Is Your Life. The program also promoted the release of the fictionalized film biographyThe Buster Keaton Story withDonald O'Connor.[68] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" ofThe Donna Reed Show on ABC. He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode "Now You See It, Now You Don't".[69] In August 1960, Keaton played mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of the Broadway musicalOnce Upon A Mattress.[70] In 1961, he starred inThe Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. He worked with comedianErnie Kovacs on a television pilot tentatively titled "Medicine Man", shooting scenes for it on January 12, 1962—the day before Kovacs died in a car crash. "Medicine Man" was completed but not aired.[71]
Buster Keaton 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, Minit-Rub, and Budweiser, among others.[72] In a series of pantomime television commercials for Simon Pure Beer made in 1962 by Jim Mohr inBuffalo, New York, Keaton revisited some of the gags from his silent-film days.[73]
In 1960, Keaton returned to MGM for the final time, playing a lion tamer in a1960 adaptation ofMark Twain'sThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Much of the film was shot on location on theSacramento River, which doubled for theMississippi River setting of Twain's book.[79] In 1962 he signed on for a Canadian musical comedy feature,Ten Girls Ago, starringteen idolDion and featuring Keaton,Bert Lahr, andEddie Foy, Jr. Keaton filmed his scenes as arranged, but the film endured a host of production problems and was never released.
Keaton had a cameo in the all-star comedyIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), appearing near the end of the film as Jimmy. He assistsSpencer Tracy's character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, by readying Culpepper's ultimately unused boat for his abortive escape. (The restored version of that film, released in 2013, contains a scene where Jimmy and Culpepper talk on the telephone. Lost after the comedy epic's "roadshow" exhibition, the audio of that scene was discovered and combined with still pictures to recreate the scene.)
I always loved Buster Keaton.... He would bring me bits and routines. He'd say, "How about this?" and it would just be this wonderful, inventive stuff.[80]
Keaton's new popularity in movies prompted Columbia Pictures to re-release some of his vintage-1940 two-reel comedies to theaters.[81] Columbia's home-movie division also sold two shorts,Pardon My Berth Marks andSo You Won't Squawk, in abridged form on silent 8mm film.
During the autumn of 1964 Keaton was in Canada, starring in the color featuretteThe Railrodder for theNational Film Board of Canada. He traveled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorizedhandcar, wearing his traditionalpork pie hat and performing gags similar to those in films that he made 50 years before. A black-and-white companion film,Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), documented Keaton at work duringThe Railrodder, staging, improving, and rejecting gags on location.
In 1965, he appeared on the CBS television specialA Salute to Stan Laurel, a tribute to the comedian and friend of Keaton who had died earlier that year. He also played the central role inSamuel Beckett's experimental projectFilm (1965), directed byAlan Schneider.
American International co-produced an Italian comedy,Due Marines e un Generale, co-starring the Italian comedy team ofFranco and Ciccio. To make it more suitable for American audiences, the studio sent Buster Keaton,Fred Clark, andMartha Hyer to join the cast and crew in Italy. (While in Italy, Keaton made an appearance at the Venice Film Festival.) The completed film was released in 1966 asWar Italian Style; his performance (as a German general) is almost entirely in pantomime.
For his next assignment, Keaton departed Italy for Spain, whereRichard Lester'sA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was filmed in September–November 1965. Keaton amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts. His increasingly ill health compelled director Lester to save Keaton's strength for the major stunts and use a double for distant, routine shots of Keaton running.
Keaton's final appearance on film was inThe Scribe, a 1966 safety film produced in Toronto by the Construction Safety Associations of Ontario: he died shortly after completing it.[49]
Buster Keaton inThe Frozen North (1922)Gilbert Roland (left) with Keaton inSan Sebastián, Spain, August 1930
Keaton started experimenting withparody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill.[82] When Keaton transposed his experience in vaudeville to film, in many works he parodied melodramas.[82] Other favorite targets were cinematic plots, structures and devices.[83]
One of his most biting parodies isThe Frozen North (1922), a satirical take onWilliam S. Hart's Western melodramas, likeHell's Hinges (1916) andThe Narrow Trail (1917). Keaton parodied the tired formula of the melodramatic transformation from bad guy to good guy, which Hart's characters went through, known as "the good badman".[84] He wears a small version of Hart's campaign hat from theSpanish–American War and asix-shooter on each thigh, and during the scene in which he shoots the neighbor and her husband, he reacts with thick glycerin tears, a trademark of Hart's.[85] Audiences of the 1920s recognized the parody and thought the film hysterically funny. 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.[86] The film's openingintertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" byRobert W. Service.[86]
InThe Playhouse (1921), he parodied his contemporaryThomas H. Ince, Hart's producer, who indulged in over-crediting himself in his film productions. The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller's act (calledPeter the Great).[82]Three Ages (1923), his first feature-length film, is a parody ofD. W. Griffith'sIntolerance (1916), from which it replicates the three inter-cut shorts structure.[82]Three Ages also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those ofSamson andDaniel.[84] Keaton directed the film, along withEdward F. Cline. 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.[87][88] 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[87]
Film criticDavid Thomson later described Keaton's style of comedy: "Buster plainly is a man inclined towards a belief in nothing but mathematics and absurdity ... like a number that has always been searching for the right equation. Look at his face—as beautiful but as inhuman as a butterfly—and you see that utter failure to identify sentiment."[89]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. His large, deep eyes are the most eloquent feature; with merely a stare, he can convey a wide range of emotions, from longing to mistrust, from puzzlement to sorrow."[90] CriticAnthony Lane also noted Keaton's body language:
The traditional Buster stance requires that he remain upstanding, full of backbone, looking ahead... [inThe General] he clambers onto the roof of his locomotive and leans gently forward to scan the terrain, with the breeze in his hair and adventure zipping toward him around the next bend. It is theangle that you remember: the figure perfectly straight but tilted forward, like theSpirit of Ecstasy on the hood of a Rolls-Royce... [inThe Three Ages], he drives a low-grade automobile over a bump in the road, and the car justcrumbles beneath him. Rerun it on video, and you can see Buster riding the collapse like a surfer, hanging onto the steering wheel, coming beautifully to rest as the wave of wreckage breaks.[91]
Keaton's face ranked almost with Lincoln's as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was irreducibly funny... No other comedian could do as much with the dead pan. He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest circumstances... an awe-inspiring sort of patience and power to endure, proper to granite but uncanny in flesh and blood. Everything that he did and was bore out this rigid face and played laughs against it. When he moved his eyes, it was like seeing them move in a statue. His short-legged body was all sudden, machinelike angles, governed by a daft aplomb. When he swept a semaphorelike arm to point, you could almost hear the electrical impulse in the signal block. When he ran from a cop his transitions from accelerating walk to easy jogtrot to brisk canter to headlong gallop to flogged-piston spring—always floating, above this frenzy, the untroubled, untouchable face—were as distinct and as soberly in order as an automatic gearshift.[92]
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. Evolved from the knockabout upbringing of the vaudeville stage, Keaton's comedy is a whirlwind of hilarious, technically precise, adroitly executed, and surprising gags, very often set against a backdrop of visually stunning set pieces and locations—all this masked behind his unflinching, stoic veneer.[93]
Keaton designed and modified his ownpork pie hats during his career. In 1964, he told an interviewer that in making "this particular pork pie", he "started with a goodStetson and cut it down", stiffening the brim with sugar water.[94] The hats were often destroyed during Keaton's wild film antics; some were given away as gifts and some were snatched by souvenir hunters. Keaton said he was lucky if he used only six hats in making a film. He estimated that he and his wife Eleanor made thousands of hats during his career. Keaton observed that during his silent period, such a hat cost him around two dollars (~$27–33 in 2022 dollars); at the time of his interview, he said, they cost almost $13 (~$116 in 2022 dollars).[94]
After Robert's birth, the marriage began to suffer. Talmadge decided not to have any more children, banishing Keaton to a separate bedroom; he dated actressesDorothy Sebastian andKathleen Key during this period.[96] Natalie's extravagance was another factor, as she spent up to a third of her husband's earnings.
Keaton had designed and built a modest cottage-like home as a surprise wedding gift for Natalie, but she was dissatisfied with its size and having no place for servants. Consequently Keaton sold it to MGM executiveEddie Mannix at cost, and commissionedGene Verge Sr. in 1926 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) estate inBeverly Hills for $300,000 ($5,141,000 in 2024). Neighbors includedTom Mix andRudolph Valentino. Among famous subsequent residents were renterMarlene Dietrich and, later,Cary Grant with his wife, heiressBarbara Hutton.James Mason and his wifePamela purchased the home in 1948.[97]
After attempts at reconciliation, Natalie divorced Buster in 1932, and changed the boys' surname to "Talmadge".[98] On July 1, 1942, the 18-year-old Robert and the 20-year-old Joseph made the name change permanent after their mother won a court petition.[99]
With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, Keaton descended into alcoholism.[16] He was briefly institutionalized, according to the Turner Classic Movies documentarySo Funny It Hurt. He escaped a straitjacket with tricks learned fromHarry Houdini. In 1933, he married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge, about which he later claimed to remember nothing. Scriven claimed that she did not know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. She filed for divorce in 1935 after finding him with Leah Clampitt Sewell, the wife of millionaireBarton Sewell II,[100] in a hotel in Santa Barbara. They divorced in 1936[101] at great financial cost to Keaton.[102] After undergoing aversion therapy, he stopped drinking for five years.[103]
On May 29, 1940, Keaton marriedEleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. She has been credited with salvaging his life and career.[104] The marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, the couple appeared regularly in theCirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them in television revivals.
Keaton was a heavy smoker.[105] He died oflung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, inWoodland Hills, Los Angeles.[106] Despite being diagnosed with cancer in January 1966, he was never told he was terminally ill. Keaton thought that he was recovering from a severe case ofbronchitis. Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers fromThames 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.[107] He was buried atForest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery inHollywood Hills,California.[108]
TheInternational Buster Keaton Society was founded on October 4, 1992: Keaton's birthday. 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 Society's nickname, the "Damfinos", draws its name from a boat in Keaton's 1921 comedy,The Boat.
Keaton in costume with his signaturepork pie hat, c. 1939
In his essayFilm-arte, film-antiartístico, artistSalvador Dalí declared the works of Keaton to be prime examples of "anti-artistic" filmmaking, calling them "pure poetry". In 1925, Dalí produced a collage titledThe 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.[113]
James Agee, critic and writer, analyzed his impact: "Keaton worked strictly for laughs, but his work came from so far inside a curious and original spirit that he achieved a great deal besides...He was the only major comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his work, and he brought pure physical comedy to its greatest heights. Beneath his lack of emotion he was also uninsistently sardonic; deep below that, giving a disturbing tension and grandeur to the foolishness, for those who sensed it, there was in his comedy a freezing whisper not of pathos but of melancholia. With the humor, the craftsmanship and the action there was often, besides, a fine, still and sometimes dreamlike beauty."[114]
Roger Ebert wrote, "The greatest of the silent clowns is Buster Keaton, not only because of what he did, but because of how he did it.Harold Lloyd made us laugh as much,Charlie Chaplin moved us more deeply, but no one had more courage than Buster."[115] In his presentation forThe General, filmmakerOrson 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". Welles said Keaton was "beyond all praise... a very great artist, and one of the most beautiful men I ever saw on the screen. He was also a great director. In the last analysis, no one came near him."[116] CriticLeslie Halliwell called Keaton "the funniest and most inventive silent clown of them all."[117]
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. He made me believe in make-believe." He also admitted to borrowing the idea of the changing room scene inThe Cameraman for his ownSilent Movie.[118] Keaton'sSherlock Jr., in which he walks into the movie he is projecting, was an influenceWoody Allen'sThe Purple Rose of Cairo, in which a character walks out of a movie and into real life.[119]George Lucas was influenced by Keaton for the character ofJar Jar Binks inStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Most notably he borrowed fromThe General,The Navigator, andSeven Chances.[120]
The 1993 American animated seriesAnimaniacs includes a caricature homage to Buster Keaton. Through its use of visual gags, physical comedy, and deadpan expressions. hallmarks of Keaton’s style, the show subtly acknowledges his influence on the art of slapstick.[citation needed]
In 1996,Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that "More thanChaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. A vaudeville child star, Keaton grew up to be a tinkerer, an athlete, a visual mathematician; his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and a spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur."[10]
Actor and stunt performerJohnny Knoxville cites Keaton as an inspiration when coming up with ideas forJackass projects. He re-enacted a famous Keaton stunt for the finale ofJackass Number Two.[123] ComedianRichard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton's widow Eleanor. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton's.[124]
In 2012,Kino Lorber releasedThe Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection, a 14-discBlu-ray box set of Keaton's work, including 11 of his feature films.[125] In 2016,Tony Hale portrayed Keaton in an episode ofDrunk History focusing on the silent comedian's supposed rivalry withCharlie Chaplin, who was played by musicianBillie Joe Armstrong. 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.[126] In honor of the event, the City ofLos Angeles declared the date "Buster Keaton Day".[127]
In 2018, filmmakerPeter Bogdanovich releasedThe Great Buster: A Celebration, a documentary about Keaton's life, career, and legacy. In 2022, criticDana 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.[128] It was followed a month later byJames Curtis' biographyBuster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life.[129] In 2023, Keaton's life and work was depicted in the graphic biographyBuster: A Life in Pictures, written by Ryan Barnett and illustrated by Matthew Tavares.[130]
Anthony Lane wrote: "He was just too good, in too many ways, too soon... No action thriller of the last, blood-streaked decade has matched the kinetic violence at the end ofSteamboat Bill, Jr., in which a storm pulls Keaton through one random catastrophe after another. Anyone who thinks that the movie-within-a-movie is a recent conceit, the province ofThe Purple Rose of Cairo andLast Action Hero, should check outSherlock Jr., a film in which Keatondreams 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. As forThe General, where do you start? It's a film about a train, but it's also a spirited romance, peppered with bickering and longing, and its evocation of the Civil War period has never been surpassed... He is the first action hero; to be precise, he is a small, pale-faced American who is startled, tripped, drenched and inspired intobecoming a hero."[131]
^"Part II:The Flickers". International Buster Keaton Society. October 13, 1924. Archived fromthe original on March 3, 2015. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2010.
^Cox, Melissa Talmadge, inBible, Karie (May 6, 2004)."Interviews: Melissa Talmadge Cox (Buster Keaton's Granddaughter)". Archived fromthe original on December 8, 2015. RetrievedDecember 7, 2015.My Dad was christened Joseph Talmadge Keaton. When my grandparents divorced, my grandmother took her maiden name back and his name legally became Talmadge.
Brighton, Catherine (2008),Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton, Roaring Brook Press. An illustrated children's book about Keaton's career.
Brownlow, Kevin, "Buster Keaton" fromThe Parade's Gone By. Alfred A. Knopf (1968), University of California Press (1976)
Byron, Stuart and Weis, Elizabeth (eds.) (1977),The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy, Grossman/Viking
.jpg)
.jpg)
_1.jpg)
_-_2.JPG)
_(cropped).jpg)
%2c_Hollywood_Boulevard%2c_Buster_Keaton_--_2012_--_5002.jpg)
