Natalie would glare and fly into a rage. "stuntmen don't get you laughs," Keaton had said.[43]. Two of Keaton's . [70], One of his most biting parodies is The Frozen North (1922), a satirical take on William S. Hart's Western melodramas, like Hell's Hinges (1916) and The Narrow Trail (1917). These guys didn't realizethey still don't realizethat the best comedies are simple. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstick and farce made most of these films resemble White's famous Three Stooges shorts. 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. Poker-Faced Comedian of Films", "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (American Masters)", Dada, Surrealism, and the Cinematic Effect, "Mel Brooks on Buster Keaton--The Lybarger Links Interview", "The Strange Behavior of Johnny Knoxville", "Keaton Weekend in L.A. Celebrates the Great Silent Comedian", "City of Los Angeles to declare June 16, 2018 "Buster Keaton Day", Barnett, Ryan and Matthew Tavares (Illustrator), Buster Keaton and the Muskegon Connection, Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts (19201923) by James L. Neibaur and Terri Niemi, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buster_Keaton&oldid=1142053518, United States Army personnel of World War I, Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills), Male actors from Beverly Hills, California, Articles with dead external links from March 2022, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Vague or ambiguous geographic scope from June 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, TCMDb name template using numeric ID from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. By James Curtis. Now that many women are having their first child in their 30s, many men in their 70s are spending time with toddlers or pre-school kids. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 February 1, 1966)[1] was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. 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. With The Frozen North and The Playhouse. Whenever a TV show wanted to simulate silent-movie comedy, Keaton answered the call and guested in such successful series as The Ken Murray Show, You Asked for It, and The Garry Moore Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show. [47], Keaton's personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage to MGM dancer Eleanor Norris, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films. Record information. Buster Keaton's full name is Joseph Frank Keaton and his nickname is Buster Keaton. By 1917, Joseph Keaton had developed severe problems with alcohol and the family's act was dissolved. Her sister, Norma Talmadge, was married to Joseph Schenck, owner of Comique Films the company that Keaton managed. Aerial stuntmen and daredevils from around 1920s - 1940s. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. While his films were technically and creatively interesting, they were either critical or box office failures. [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. Yallop, David (1976). 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. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton's. Keaton's wife Eleanor also was seen in the series (notably as Juliet to Keaton's Romeo in a little-theater vignette). Keaton was presented with a 1959 Academy Honorary Award at the 32nd Academy Awards, held in April 1960. [90] After undergoing aversion therapy, he stopped drinking for five years.[91]. He appeared on shows such as Playhouse 90, Route 66, and The Twilight Zone. He was born into a vaudeville family; his father's name was Joseph Keaton while his mother's was Myra. "[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. Keaton had never paid much attention to the business side of the film industry, and he paid a hefty price. 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. That's the way it always had been, until his mother . In 1933, he married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing. ), Keaton was so demoralized during the production of 1933's What! While it's debatable Keaton's family life was the root of his deterioration, one factor that certainly bothered him was his marriage. 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. [105], Actor and stunt performer Johnny Knoxville cites Keaton as an inspiration when coming up with ideas for Jackass projects. He also began using a moving camera, at a time when many of his peers continued to use stationary ones. A great primer about the history of Buster Keaton b. Keaton was such a natural in his first film, The Butcher Boy, he was hired on the spot. In 2018 filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich released The Great Buster: A Celebration, a documentary about Keaton's life, career, and legacy. This was witnessed by the magician Harry Houdini (or, some say, actor George Pardey), who christened the hearty boy Buster. The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived. But it's even more pleasurable to get back to the presentwhere brooding, miserable, non-smiling Humphrey Bogart really shines. He supported them all. [54] In a series of silent television commercials for Simon Pure Beer made in 1962 by Jim Mohr in Buffalo, New York, Keaton revisited some of the gags from his silent film days. 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. They divorced in 1936[89] at great financial cost to Keaton. "Introduction." TCM voice-over, October 2011, "Buster Keaton Month". His unit remained intact and was not broken up to provide replacements, as happened to some other late-arriving divisions. The following year, United Artists hired Keaton; he made ten shorts in the next two years. [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. 253 ratings60 reviews. He stars as a great fortune's sole heir that falls in love with the daughter of his family's greatest rival, played by . Buster Keaton and Ernest . Brother of Harry Stanley Keaton and Louise J. Keaton. [56] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. ", "The Narrative-Machine: Buster Keaton's Cinematic Comedy, Deleuze's Recursion Function and the Operational Aesthetic", "Keaton Chose $40 in Films to $750 on Stage", Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase: A Biography, "My Career at the Rear / Buster Keaton in World War I", "Muskegon: Buster Keaton documentary to focus on early life in Muskegon", "Reviews: The General/Steamboat Bill Jr", "Velocipede used by Buster Keaton in the film Our Hospitality", "Moving Pictures: Buster Keaton's 'General' Pulls In To PFA. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Buster Keaton With Dog Rare Candid 8x10 Photo at the best online prices at eBay! Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including in a 1964 interview with the CBC's Telescope. Three Kids. Though this was a partnership, Cline later acknowledged that Keaton did much of the work. 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. 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 . During this period, he made another film in England, The Invader (released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).[45]. I said, 'I'd like to do something with a drunk and a fat lady and a kid. Buster Keaton. Free shipping for many products! [71] He wears a small version of Hart's campaign hat from the SpanishAmerican War and a six-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. 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. On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. His impassive features gave him the nickname "The Great Stone Face.". He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography. It was followed a month later by James Curtis' biography Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. 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. The International Buster Keaton Society was founded on October 4, 1992: Keaton's birthday. 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. 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. Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill. Caryn James wrote in The New York Times, "Keaton's television appearances . The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller's act (called Peter the Great). By Dana Stevens. Keaton had designed and built a modest but comfortable, cottage-like home as a surprise wedding gift for his bride. A two-day pass to the festival will cost $40, or a one-day pass for $25. Keaton's contract with MGM was ended in 1933. "Medicine Man" was completed but not aired. [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. Much of the film was shot on location on the Sacramento River, which doubled for the Mississippi River setting of Twain's book. . A scene from "Our Hospitality," the feature film at the 2013 Buster Keaton Convention in Muskegon. By 1923, Keaton was making full-length features. Unfortunately, his one attempt at a strong dramatic role, the lead in the weak biopic The Buster Keaton Story (1957) proved to be . Keaton's art has inspired full academic study. . Photograph: Ronald Grant. His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana. Meanwhile, the eldest scion of "fun's funniest family" traveled on to New York and Ehrich House, where he arrived, according to his datebook, on January 18, 1917. . He was soon offered a role in a Broadway show, The Passing Show of 1917, for the princely sum of $250 per week. 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. . Actor James Mason had bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classic The Boat. Everybody else in the studio likes the story. [13] The General has placed highly on the Sight & Sound poll, and Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator also received multiple votes. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day. He stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother. The oldest son of Joseph and Myra Keaton, who were stage comedians. His mother nicknamed him Jimmy. After Robert's birth, the marriage began to suffer. To the world, he was the famous silent film star Buster Keaton, but to Melissa Talmadge Cox of Cloverdale, he was simply Grandpa Buster. 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 film has a largely negative reputation, with renowned film historian Kevin Brownlow calling it the worst film ever made.[50]. [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). 4.47. Geni requires JavaScript! [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". Guys did n't realizethey still do n't realizethat the best comedies are simple is Buster Month... Stuntmen do n't get you laughs, '' Keaton had shared the bill pass for $.. 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