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. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. (1933). The medium revitalized his career. Keaton's personal favorite was the series' debut, Pest from the West, a shorter, tighter remake of Keaton's little-viewed 1934 feature The Invader; it was directed not by White but by Del Lord, a veteran director for Mack Sennett. Spouse: Thelma Ferne WOOD (1905-xxxx) 4454 People 0 Records 0 Sources: Buster William Keaton Sr. found in 22 trees View all. Comedy director Leo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies, said, "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. Keaton had a hard time capturing the promise of Sherlock Jr. over the next few years. $49.99. [73] The film's opening intertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert W. 33. Buster Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor. Six of his films have been included in the National Film Registry, making him one of the most honored filmmakers on that list: One Week (1920), Cops (1922), Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr., and The Cameraman (both 1928)[97], A 1957 film biography, The Buster Keaton Story, starring Donald O'Connor as Keaton was released. . This will be the festival's return to Iola. [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. (The restored version of that film, released in 2013, contains a scene where Jimmy and Culpeper talk on the telephone. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family. He ran to meet misfortune and never failed to make connections. Get 'em for me.' The Day the Laughter Stopped. [56] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. 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. Realizing that his bride wanted a palace, he sold the cottage to MGM executive Eddie Mannix at cost, and commissioned Gene Verge Sr. in 1926 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930m2) estate in Beverly Hills for $300,000, which was later owned by James Mason and Cary Grant. John Schneider, commander of the Toledo post, announced. "It was as long as War and Peace," Keaton recalled. [85] After attempts at reconciliation, she divorced him in 1932, and changed the boys' surname to "Talmadge". The son of . The oldest son of Joseph and Myra Keaton, who were stage comedians. [69] Three Ages (1923), his first feature-length film, is a parody of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), from which it replicates the three inter-cut shorts structure. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career. 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 locationsall this masked behind his unflinching, stoic veneer. Keaton's daring was unquestionable; his famous $42,000 train wreck in The General almost $650,000 in today's dollarsis the most expensive shot in silent film history. By Kelly Braun. Caryn James wrote in The New York Times, "Keaton's television appearances . Last year, she went to Germany for a Buster Keaton Film Festival. Keaton's wife Eleanor also was seen in the series (notably as Juliet to Keaton's Romeo in a little-theater vignette). in Woodland Hills, California, USA, This form allows you to report an error or to submit additional information about this family tree: Buster KEATON (1895), Copyright Wikipdia authors - This article is under licence CC BY-SA 3.0. 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. Keaton managed to get his drinking under control by 1934, after a short time in Europe where he appeared in several films including Le roi des Champs-Elyses (1934). Vance, Jeffrey. By 1923, Keaton was making full-length features. . 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. $49.99 He also admitted to borrowing the idea of the changing room scene in The Cameraman for his own film Silent Movie. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. Keaton was a seminal comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and director that shaped the industry for years to come, even though the industry stole the creative control that made his early films so valuable. Free shipping. 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. [87], With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, Keaton descended into alcoholism. [68], Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Over time, things grew unpleasant between Buster and his dad . Like Arbuckle before him, Keaton began directing films that he appeared in. "[31] The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. . In 1920, Keaton made his first full-length feature, The Saphead, playing the straight man, Bertie "The Lamb" Van Alstyne. Keaton spent $42,000 on sending a train into a burning bridge. Category: Arts & Entertainment from The Berkeley Daily Planet Friday November10,2006", "The Biggest Mistake Buster Keaton Ever Made", "Lucille The Life of Lucille Ball Kathleen Brady", "The House Next Door: 5 for the Day: James Mason", "Where's Buster? During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he was asked to jump in and start acting. I said, 'I'd like to do something with a drunk and a fat lady and a kid. 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. 1. . (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he underwent.[30]). By 1917, Joseph Keaton had developed severe problems with alcohol and the family's act was dissolved. [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. In Go West (1925), he is stared down by a herd of cattle. In College (1927), Keaton was engaged in every athletic sport except football, but it was a disappointment. Two years later she changed their sons' last name to Talmadge. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 February 1, 1966)[1] was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. I just stood there, and everybody is hassling. [4] In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that "More than Chaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. 616: Ruth Carbaugh 201; Elaine Weigle 513. In In the Good Old Summertime, Keaton personally directed the stars Judy Garland and Van Johnson in their first scene together, where they bump into each other on the street. Life with Buster Keaton (1951) was an attempt to recreate the first series on film, allowing the program to be broadcast nationwide. [46] Keaton had a free hand in staging the films, within the studio's budgetary limits and using its staff writers. Buster Keaton and Marceline Day in The Cameraman, 1928. 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 started so young that landing right is second nature with me. [20]:18, At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. He'd say, "How about this?" [19] He was briefly institutionalized, according to the Turner Classic Movies documentary So Funny It Hurt. Because of Keaton's success, and a notorious scandal involving Arbuckle, Comique Films was renamed Buster Keaton Productions. [109] In honor of the event, the City of Los Angeles declared the date "Buster Keaton Day."[110]. 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. With complete artistic control, he developed his own working methodology and made about two pictures per year. Buster plays a projectionist who dreams his way onto the screen and into a movie in which he resolves the conflicts of his own life. 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. 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 . Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. In 1920, Arbuckle left Comique Films for Paramount. 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. It's true that Keaton was born in Piqua on October 4, 1895but it wasn't his home. . "[5] In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.[6]. Though this was a partnership, Cline later acknowledged that Keaton did much of the work. 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. A video shows silent film star Buster Keaton performing a risky stunt on a moving train. Between 1947 and 1954, the couple appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. In 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast. [13] The General has placed highly on the Sight & Sound poll, and Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator also received multiple votes. Keaton's widow, Eleanor, attended for a couple of years. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography. [32], Aside from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Cameraman (1928), and The General (1926). For most grandfathers, this means doing puzzles on the living room floor or pushing their grandchild on a swing. . The act was mainly a comedy sketch. In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. The first was Sherlock Jr., in which a daydreaming projectionist who longs to be a detective becomes part of the movie he is showing. [45] In another telling, Keaton was fired after MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer "raided" Keaton's dressing room during a wild party with Keaton's "cronies and their girlfriends" and Keaton "angrily ordered Mayer to get out." . 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