Unfortunately, his one attempt at a strong dramatic role, the lead in the weak biopic The Buster Keaton Story (1957) proved to be . His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana. In one sequence, Keaton even danced with himself. 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 impassive features gave him the nickname "The Great Stone Face.". [42] 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. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 966 Hollywood Loses Tavo Hedda Hopper, Lamar Green 217. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country, since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951. Much of the film was shot on location on the Sacramento River, which doubled for the Mississippi River setting of Twain's book. From left is Harry Keaton Jr.'s daughter, Lisa Geisler, and Keaton celebration committee chairman Frank Scheide. Sherlock Jr. will be Keaton's most enduring commentary on the art of cinema. In 1926, audiences were amazed by the daredevil antics of comedian Buster Keaton in the movie "The General . But not MGM. Keaton is often described as having been ahead of his time; 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 of Steamboat Bill, Jr., in which a storm pulls Keaton through one random catastrophe after another. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 - February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. Everybody else in the studio likes the story. 1. [39], Welcomed to the studio by Irving Thalberg, with whom he initially had a relationship of mutual admiration,[40] Keaton realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would severely limit his creative input. 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. [78], 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. By the time he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act,[22] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Keaton's career quickly moved from vaudeville to film. Keaton observed that during his silent period, such a hat cost him around two dollars (~$2733 in 2022 dollars); at the time of his interview, he said, they cost almost $13 (~$116 in 2022 dollars). The medium revitalized his career. A Buster Keaton Granddad. 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. . [46] Keaton had a free hand in staging the films, within the studio's budgetary limits and using its staff writers. He was 70 years old. He was handed a script titled Sidewalks of New York (1932), in which he played a millionaire becoming involved with a slum-neighborhood girl and a gang of rowdy kids. Keaton's writers included Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. Born on October 4, 1895, in Piqua, Kansas, as Joseph Francis Keaton. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton's. He supported them all. Afterward, I only gradually realized what kind of family I was inheriting. Yallop, David (1976). In Our Hospitality (1923), a film about a mountain feud, Keaton shot both a novel train scene and waterfall scene on location. The 21st Annual International Buster Keaton Convention will be held Oct 2-3, in Muskegon, MI, and The Humphrey Bogart Film Festival will be held October 21-25, in Key Largo, FL. Lost after the comedy epic's "roadshow" exhibition, the audio of that scene was discovered and combined with still pictures to recreate the scene.). 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. Keaton soon discovered that his brand of comedy, especially his deadpan facial expressions, worked very well on film. This was witnessed by the magician Harry Houdini (or, some say, actor George Pardey), who christened the hearty boy Buster. By 1923, Keaton was making full-length features. 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. . [53] Keaton also 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, Minute Rub, and Budweiser, among others. Buster Keaton and Phyllis Haver in The Balloonatic (1923) - publicity still. [87], With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, Keaton descended into alcoholism. In Go West (1925), he is stared down by a herd of cattle. However, Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones. Buster Keaton. During the railroad water-tank scene in Sherlock 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. The General was a Civil War romance, that featured many impressive chase scenes and one very expensive special effects shot. [106], Comedian Richard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton's widow Eleanor. Keaton had a hard time capturing the promise of Sherlock Jr. over the next few years. [3][4] Critic Roger 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". [26][27], Keaton spent the summers of 19081916 "at the 'Actor's Colony' in the Bluffton neighborhood of Muskegon, along with other famous vaudevillians. [7] The General is viewed as his masterpiece: Orson Welles considered it "the greatest comedy ever madeand perhaps the greatest film ever made". Piqua, Kansas's greatest claim to fame is that it's the birthplace of Buster Keaton. [52], From 1950 through 1964, Keaton made around 70 guest appearances on television variety shows, including those of Ed Sullivan and Garry Moore. By the time he left the act to star in motion pictures with Fatty Arbuckle at age 22, he had already been doing slapstick comedy for over 86% of his life. 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), and What! None of them were very good. . "I went over (Weingarten's) head and appealed to Irving Thalberg to help get me out of the assignment. Filmmaker 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. When a grant that funded the program ended in 2017, the festival moved to Kansas City for a year. They became enthralled with the area, and beginning in 1907, the family returned annually. Buster Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor. 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". She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them in television revivals. In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. Production head Irving Thalberg would not permit Keaton to create a script from scratch because the studio had already purchased a stage property, Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath, at the suggestion of Lawrence Weingarten, who was Thalberg's brother-in-law and Keaton's producer. 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. [57] In August 1960, Keaton played mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of the Broadway musical Once Upon A Mattress. He was born into a vaudeville family; his father's name was Joseph Keaton while his mother's was Myra. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Buster Keaton With Family Rare Candid 8x10 Photo at the best online prices at eBay! 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. 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. In College (1927), Keaton was engaged in every athletic sport except football, but it was a disappointment. He continued to appear on television until his death. Jimmy assists Spencer Tracy's character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, by readying Culpepper's ultimately-unused boat for his abortive escape. His wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. [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. Keaton said that he canceled the filmed series himself, because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week. Buster Keaton. In 1964, he told an interviewer that in making "this particular pork pie", he "started with a good Stetson and cut it down", stiffening the brim with sugar water. "Medicine Man" was completed but not aired. A video shows silent film star Buster Keaton performing a risky stunt on a moving train. Genealogy for Joseph Frank Keaton, VI (1895 - 1966) family tree on Geni, with over 240 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. It is the angle that you remember: the figure perfectly straight but tilted forward, like the Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood of a Rolls-Royce [in The Three Ages], he drives a low-grade automobile over a bump in the road, and the car just crumbles beneath him. [49], Keaton accepted various character roles in both "A" and "B" features. The grandchildren delighted in deliberately mentioning Buster's name. (1933). Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. 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". But we had no luck with Keaton because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal him! In 2022, two works on Keaton appeared within a month of each other. 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". The next project confirmed Keaton's fears about studio interference. 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. Their son began appearing on stage with them as early as nine months of age. 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. The death this week of, children. Keaton made his first full-length feature film, "Our Hospitality," in 1923. She has been credited with salvaging his life and career. BUSTER KEATON is an adoptable Dog - Schnauzer searching for a forever family near Atlanta, GA. Use Petfinder to find adoptable pets in your area. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend, illusionist Harry Houdini. He amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts, although the Thames Television documentary reported that his increasingly ill health did force the use of a stunt double for some scenes. In today's dollars that would be the equivalent of more than $600,000making it the most . Other significant film appearances included Around the World in 80 Days (1956), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), and War Italian Style (1966). He stars as a great fortune's sole heir that falls in love with the daughter of his family's greatest rival, played by . He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography. John Schneider, commander of the Toledo post, announced. On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. Buster Keaton was one of three great silent film comedians (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd). Vance, Jeffrey. Within the family it had become a joke. 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. In 1920, Keaton made his first full-length feature, The Saphead, playing the straight man, Bertie "The Lamb" Van Alstyne. 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