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Quick Facts
- NAME: Buster Keaton
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Comedian
- BIRTH DATE: October 04, 1895
- DEATH DATE: February 01, 1966
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Piqua, Kansas
- PLACE OF DEATH: Woodland Hills, California
- Originally: Joseph Frank Keaton IV
Best Known For
Buster Keaton. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 01:48, Feb 10, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442
Buster Keaton [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442, February 10
" Buster Keaton." 2012. Biography.com 10 Feb 2012, 01:48 http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442
' Buster Keaton', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442 [accessed Feb 10, 2012]
" Buster Keaton," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442 (accessed Feb 10, 2012).
Buster Keaton [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 10]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442.
Buster Keaton, http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442 (last visited Feb 10, 2012).
Buster Keaton, http://www.biography.com/people/buster-keaton-9361442 (last visited Feb 10, 2012).
Synopsis
Profile
(born October 4, 1895, Piqua, Kansas, U.S.—died February 1, 1966, Woodland Hills, California) American film comedian and director, the “Great Stone Face” of the silent screen, known for his deadpan expression and his imaginative and often elaborate visual comedy.The son of vaudevillians, Keaton is said to have earned his famous nickname when, at age 18 months, he fell down a staircase; magician Harry Houdini picked up the unhurt infant, turned to the boy's parents, and chuckled “That's some buster' your baby took.” Joe and Myra Keaton added Buster to their vaudeville act when he was three years old. The Three Keatons specialized in knockabout acrobatics, with Joe using little Buster as a “human mop.” Already accustomed to taking pratfalls without suffering injury, Buster learned how to get laughs at a very early age. He also discovered that “the more serious I turned, the bigger laugh I got,” and accordingly adopted his trademark deadpan expression.
Remaining with the family act until age 21, he was hired to appear solo in the Broadway revue The Passing Show of 1917 at a salary of $250 per week. Just before rehearsals started, Buster was invited to play a small role in The Butcher Boy, a two-reel comedy film directed by and starring Roscoe (“Fatty”) Arbuckle. Fascinated with the technical aspects and creative possibilities of the movie medium, Keaton went to work for Arbuckle as a supporting player at a weekly salary of $40. He spent the next two years learning every facet of motion-picture comedy, an invaluable training program interrupted only by his military service during World War I. The generous Arbuckle not only bestowed full costar status on Keaton but also welcomed Buster's participation in the creation of gags and scenarios. When Arbuckle graduated to feature films, his producer Joseph M. Schenck arranged for Keaton to inherit Fatty's production staff, and in 1920 Keaton launched his own two-reel series with the brilliant One Week. Three years later Keaton himself moved into starring features with The Three Ages (1923). (He had starred in the feature The Saphead [1920], but the film, unlike his subsequent efforts, was neither conceived nor tailored for his talents).
Though he often referred to his film alter ego as “Old Slow Thinker,” Keaton's screen character possessed remarkable resourcefulness. But he was also a fatalist, resigned to the fact that the world was against him. Wasting no pity on himself, he neither expected nor solicited any sympathy from the audience. Even when his character “won,” he refused to allow himself
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