 Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr., 1924 Joseph Francis "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 - February 1, 1966) was a popular and influential American silent-film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname The Great Stone Face. His innovative work as a director made basic contributions to the development of the art of cinema.
In 2002, Sight and Sound—the quarterly of the British Film Institute—conducted a world-wide poll asking 253 critics, writers, and directors to list the 10 best films of all time. Four of Keaton's films received votes: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., The Navigator, and The General. The General ranked 15th in the critics' poll.[1] (http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/index.html)
Early life in vaudeville
Keaton was born in the town of Piqua (peek-WAY), Kansas. His mother and father, Myra and Joe Keaton, worked in a travelling medicine show, and Myra happened to go into labor in Piqua. Buster was born in a boarding house that was later destroyed by a tornado. Currently on this site is a memorial plaque, and nearby is a small power plant than maintains a one-room Keaton museum. Piqua is so small that the annual Buster Keaton Celebration is held in nearby Iola, Kansas.
His godfather was Harry Houdini, and Keaton himself credited Houdini with dubbing him "Buster" after seeing him, aged three, tumble down a flight of stairs without injury. At the time, the word "buster" either meant "bronco-buster" or a fall. It was only after Keaton was nicknamed the word became a name — one example of this early use is the comic strip character Buster Brown.
Keaton grew up in the world of vaudeville. At the age of three, he began performing with his parents as "The Three Keatons". In the act, Myra played the saxophone to one side while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. The storyline was how to raise a small child. Buster would goad Joe by disobeying him, and Joe would respond by throwing Buster against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. The act evolved after four-year old Buster showed his father that he could perform trick falls safely. He was rarely injured or even bruised on stage. Nevertheless, this knockabout style of comedy lead to accusations of child abuse. Decades later, Keaton said that he was never abused by his father, and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In fact, Buster would have so much fun, he would begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. This drew fewer laughs from the audience, so Buster adopted his famous dead-pan expression whenever he was working.
The act ran afoul laws banning child performers in vaudeville. When one official saw Buster in full costume and make-up, he asked a stage-hand how old that performer was. The stage-hand shrugged and pointed to Buster's mother. "I don't know," he said, "ask his wife!" Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of the English Music Halls, Buster was a rising star in the theater, so much so that even when Myra and Joe tried to introduce Buster's siblings into the act, Buster remained the central attraction.
By the time Buster was 21, Joe's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act, so Buster and Myra left Joe in Los Angeles. Myra returned to their summer home in Michigan, while Buster travelled to New York, where his performing career moved from vaudeville to film.
Silent film era
In February 1917 Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in New York, who invited him to the studio, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. He was hired as a co-star and gag-man. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, a bond that would never break, even after Arbuckle was embroiled in the scandal that cost him his career and his personal life.
With Keaton's success, the studio gave him his own production unit. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), Cops (1922), The Electric House (1922), and The Playhouse (1921). Based on the success of these shorts, he graduated to full-length features. These films made Keaton one of the most famous comedians in the world. At the time, he was perhaps the third most popular comedian in America behind Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd.
His film making style employs editing and framing techniques that are more closely aligned with modern sensibilities than the melodrama of other films of the day. Likewise, his comedy, style, and humor has been called timeless, while other silent stars are said to have comedy that was of their era. His most famous and popular feature-length films included Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), and The General (1927). The last film, a Civil War adventure, is considered his masterpiece, combining physical comedy with Keaton's love for trains. It is seen by many as a good choice for viewers who are becoming newly acquainted with silent films. One of his last silent films, The Cameraman (1928) was released on DVD format in December, 2004. This is another fine introduction for new Keaton fans. Unfortunately, many of his most acclaimed films performed poorly in the box office due to their sophistication -- the audience had a difficult time seeing Buster as a cinematic artist of considerable ambition.
In addition, the technical side of filmmaking fascinated him and he was forward thinking enough to want to produce sound films when they began to become technically practical and popular. The fact that he had a good voice and years of stage experience promised an easier adjustment than Chaplin's silent Tramp character, whom Chaplin thought could not survive sound.
Marriages
In 1921, he married Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of his boss, Joe Schenck, and sister of actress Norma Talmadge. After the birth of their second son, the marriage began to suffer. According to Keaton's autobiography, Natalie turned him out of the bedroom and sent detectives to follow him to see whom he was dating behind her back. In 1932, Natalie divorced him, taking his entire fortune, and refusing to allow contact between Keaton and his sons. Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later.
In 1933, Buster married Mae Scriven, his nurse during an alcoholic binge that he remembered nothing about afterward. When they divorced in 1936, she took half of everything they owned — half of each dining set, half of each table and chair set, half of the books, and even Buster's favorite St. Bernard, Elmer.
In 1940, Buster married Eleanor Norris, who was twenty years younger than he. She saved his life and helped salvage his career. All their friends advised them against it, but the marriage lasted until Buster's death. Between 1947 and 1954, Buster and Eleanor appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris, in a highly-regarded doubles act.
Sound era and television
Keaton's filmmaking unit was acquired by MGM in 1928, a business decision that Keaton regretted ever afterwards. He was forced to enter the ranks of the studio system, working at the MGM studios in a more restrictive environment that he had previously worked in. He had difficulty adapting to the studio system, and lapsed into alcoholism. His career declined within a few years, and he spent most of the 1930s in obscurity, working as a gag writer for various MGM films, particularly those of the Marx Brothers—including A Night at the Opera (1935) and At the Circus (1939)—and various films of Red Skelton.
He made appearances in films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He had a brief cameo in Charlie Chaplin's late film Limelight (1952). For ten minutes, Keaton and Chaplin share the screen for the only time in their careers, playing two aging former vaudeville stars trying to recapture a bit of glory, decades after both Chaplin's and Keaton's fame had peaked — though Keaton remarks, "If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window."
He had two back-to-back telvision series, The Buster Keaton Show (1950) and Life With Buster Keaton (1951). Despite their popularity, he cancelled the programs because he could not create enough material to produce a new show each week. He also found steady work as an actor for TV commercials, but he largely believed that he had been forgotten. His classic silent films saw a revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Shortly before he died, Keaton starred in a short film called The Railrodder (1965) for the National Film Board of Canada, in which he returned to the classic deadpan style that he had known during the peak of his career in the 1920s. He also played the central role in Samuel Beckett's only film project, Film (1965).
Death
Buster contracted lung cancer after years of smoking. His wife and doctors let him believe that he had contracted chronic bronchitis, and he was never told that he was dying. Why exactly they did this is uncertain, but it is clear that Keaton required others to manage his daily living. Since his condition was already terminal when it was diagnosed, perhaps they were concerned that if he had been told, he would have stopped working. Performing before a camera or a live-audience was what Buster enjoyed most, apart from model trains. Buster Keaton is interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Legacy and contribution
Buster Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd are remembered as the great comic innovators of the silent era. Many regard Keaton was a superior filmmaker of the three, although Keaton never made such comparisons. He enjoyed Lloyd's films highly and often praised Chaplin for his genius.
Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6321 Hollywood Boulevard (for television). In 1994, he appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
Many actors and filmmakers were influenced by Keaton, including Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards, and Jackie Chan.
Filmography
Books
- Keaton, Buster; Samuels, Charles (1982). My Wonderful World Of Slapstick. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80178-7.
- Keaton, Eleanor; Vance, Jeffery (2001). Buster Keaton Remembered. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810942275.
- Meade, Marion (1995). Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase. Harper Collins. ISBN 0060173378.
External links
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