Keaton had a short-lived second marriage with Mae Elizabeth Scriven, a nurse, hairstylist and playwright. While it's debatable Keaton's family life was the root of his deterioration, one factor that certainly bothered him was his marriage. He began performing with his parents as a three year old in the act 'The Three Keatons', first . 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. . Twenty-five years after the divorce, she would not permit his name to be spoken in her house. [98] A 1987 documentary, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, won two Emmy Awards.[99]. In 2016, Tony Hale portrayed Keaton in an episode of Drunk History focusing on the silent comedian's supposed rivalry with Charlie Chaplin, who was played by musician Billie Joe Armstrong. That's the way it always had been, until his mother . 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. Joseph Frank Keaton was born October 4, 1895 to Joe, a comedic acrobat whose main aid was a table, and Myra, one of the . [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. An error has occured while loading the map. His first directorial effort, The High Sign, was a short that apparently did not work very well. [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. Buster KEATON from tree Compton-Queen Family Tree_2011-02-01. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 February 1, 1966)[1] was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. In 1939, Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in 10 two-reel comedies; the series ran for two years, and comprise his last series as a starring comedian. Buster Keaton was one of three great silent film comedians (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd). His marriage to actress Natalie Talmadge, with whom he had two sons, fell apart, and he became plagued with issues related to alcoholism and depression. Their son began appearing on stage with them as early as nine months of age. Educational primarily distributed short subjects; it is best known for its series of comedies starring Buster Keaton (1934-37) and the earliest screen appearances . . [68], Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians, Bell Publishing, 1978, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, Chap. [67] He played the central role in Samuel Beckett's Film (1965), directed by Alan Schneider. They divorced in 1936[89] at great financial cost to Keaton. Keaton had never paid much attention to the business side of the film industry, and he paid a hefty price. He stars as a great fortune's sole heir that falls in love with the daughter of his family's greatest rival, played by . 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. It was followed a month later by James Curtis' biography Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. Keaton's wife Eleanor also was seen in the series (notably as Juliet to Keaton's Romeo in a little-theater vignette). He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode "Now You See It, Now You Don't". After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. Connect to the World Family Tree to find out. Plus two cats, a dog, and a St. Bernard. The child labor laws of which the Keaton family continually ran afoul; the very notion of institutionalized if widely varying child welfare practices; the state of the film industry in the first . In the end, I gave up like a fool and said 'what the hell?' The giant studio was run along strict factory lines, with everything planned and budgeted in advance. [13] The General has placed highly on the Sight & Sound poll, and Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator also received multiple votes. . John Schneider, commander of the Toledo post, announced. He was, in fact, the star and a skilled acrobat. They are the work of a man who, after decades of obscurity, found a way to perpetuate his comic images by embracing a new medium." Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country, since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951. The first ten minutes of The General tell us everything we need to know about its embrace of the Confederacy and its white supremacy. In Go West (1925), he is stared down by a herd of cattle. Best known for his silent film work, Keaton was ranked as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute in 1999. No Beer? By the age of 5, Buster is part of his family's vaudeville act, and only 6 months later the Atlanta Constitution names him as "the star of the Keaton aggregation of three". 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. Keaton, Eleanor, and Vance, Jeffrey (2001). [73] The film's opening intertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert W. He received the nickname "Buster" while still an infant. The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Keaton suffered from several personal crises as well. Vance, Jeffrey. Buster Keaton With Family Rare Candid 8x10 Photo. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career. 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. 616: Ruth Carbaugh 201; Elaine Weigle 513. By James Curtis. Buster Keaton got his name in true slapstick fashion. This was witnessed by the magician Harry Houdini (or, some say, actor George Pardey), who christened the hearty boy Buster. Pioneer in Film Industry. Her sister, Norma Talmadge, was married to Joseph Schenck, owner of Comique Films the company that Keaton managed. [94] He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.[95]. It was based on a successful play, The New Henrietta, which had already been filmed once, under the title The Lamb, with Douglas Fairbanks playing the lead. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. 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 . Rami Malek and Buster Keaton Samir Hussein/WireImage/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images. So that's how he did itit hurtbut you had to care enough not to care. 33. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend . 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. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger "prestige" pictures. Keaton supported himself throughout the 1940s by appearing on stage in Europe and the United States, and writing gags for MGM and 20th Century-Fox. 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. Service.[73]. Shortly after his son's birth, Joseph Keaton changed his son's name to Joseph Francis Keaton. He was every member of the audience as well as every performer. New York: St. Martin's Press. (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he underwent.[30]). The program always includes talks by Keaton expertsincluding family memberssocial events and film screenings. In 1926, audiences were amazed by the daredevil antics of comedian Buster Keaton in the movie "The General . 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. Keaton spent $42,000 on sending a train into a burning bridge. Harry N. Abrams, 2001, pg. 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. TCM voice-over, October 2011, "Buster Keaton Month". Though this was a partnership, Cline later acknowledged that Keaton did much of the work. Film critic David 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. [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. The General, set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains,[33] including an epic locomotive chase. [79], Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. His wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family. [23], The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. [29] Keaton later said[where?] Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton's greatest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. In 1933, he married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing. Go Outside. The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera (1936), featuring Keaton in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. 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! 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 . Melissa Talmadge Cox is the granddaughter of Buster Keaton and a long time resident of Cloverdale. Keaton then refused to appear at a publicity event, and was fired 48 hours later. The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller's act (called Peter the Great). 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. [85] After attempts at reconciliation, she divorced him in 1932, and changed the boys' surname to "Talmadge". [61][62][63][64][65], Meanwhile, Keaton's big-screen career continued. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine show that included family friend, illusionist Harry Houdini. Image via United Artists. [107], In 2012, Kino Lorber released The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection, a 14-disc Blu-ray box set of Keaton's work, including 11 of his feature films.[108]. Between 1947 and 1954, the couple appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer, Born on October 04, 1895 [101], In his essay Film-arte, film-antiartstico, artist Salvador Dal declared the works of Keaton to be prime examples of "anti-artistic" filmmaking, calling them "pure poetry". The stunt required precision, because the prop house weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of clearance around Keaton's body. 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). Scriven claimed that she didn't know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. It was clear that Mr. Keaton and Mrs. Keaton had different ideas and lifestyles. [40] In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-lyses. Buster Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor. In Seven Chances (1925), he faces a rockslide. The festival began in 1993 and grew to international recognition. 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). Free shipping for many products! Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill. The medium revitalized his career. He was a motion picture comic actor, writer, producer, and director of the 1910s thru 1960s. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. I said, 'I'd like to do something with a drunk and a fat lady and a kid. [56] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. Record information. The next project confirmed Keaton's fears about studio interference. He made me believe in make-believe." [96] Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6225 Hollywood Boulevard (for television). Harold Lloyd made us laugh as much, Charlie Chaplin moved us more deeply, but no one had more courage than Buster."[103]. Photograph: Ronald Grant. It's true that Keaton was born in Piqua on October 4, 1895but it wasn't his home. "[44] Keaton made the film anyway, and was amazed that it became his biggest box office success. He directed three short films in 1938. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 966 Hollywood Loses Tavo Hedda Hopper, Lamar Green 217. Keaton had two shows of his own, including The Buster Keaton Comedy Show (1949) and The Buster Keaton Show from 1950 until 1951. Buster Keaton With Camera Rare Candid 8x10 Photo. To the world, he was the famous silent film star Buster Keaton, but to Melissa Talmadge Cox of Cloverdale, he was simply Grandpa Buster. and it would just be this wonderful, inventive stuff.[66]. 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