His unit remained intact and was not broken up to provide replacements, as happened to some other late-arriving divisions. Keaton's periodic television appearances during the 1950s and 1960s helped to revive interest in his silent films. Michigan, but due to Covid-19 it will be online, with screenings, rare footage and appearances by family members. His great period began in 1923 when he appeared in The Three Ages and a year later he made a full length comedy . Plus two cats, a dog, and a St. Bernard. Director William Asher recalled: I always loved Buster Keaton. He would bring me bits and routines. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920. The innovative special effects he developed for The Playhouse made him an early leader in the field. It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton's judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a "few laughs. He began performing with his parents as a three year old in the act 'The Three Keatons', first . Keaton made Steamboat Bill Jr., his last film with Buster Keaton Productions, in 1928. While his films were technically and creatively interesting, they were either critical or box office failures. Buster Keaton Remembered. The one-story house, built in 1947, was bought with the $50,000 given to Buster by Paramount for the screen rights to his life story. [21] In Keaton's retelling, he was six months old when the incident occurred, and Harry Houdini gave him the nickname (though the family did not get to know Houdini until later). His greatest works from . He had his sound debut in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, then made eight more films under his Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract. On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. 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. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family. [56] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. [90] After undergoing aversion therapy, he stopped drinking for five years.[91]. Buster had broken up his family's vaudeville act, "The Three Keatons", at the age of 21, when his father's drinking made their rough-and-tumble act too difficult and dangerous. Born the same year as the film industry in 1895, Buster Keaton began his career as the child star of a family slapstick act reputed . You are the only one who doesn't.' Throughout the story, a simple good-guys-versus-bad-guys schema is applied to the Civil War, with the Confederates being the good guys, and Johnnie's hometown of Marietta depicted as a sort of bland, folksy utopia. Joseph Frank Keaton (1895 - 1966) 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 and Arbuckle became close friends, and Keaton was one of few people, along with Charlie Chaplin, to defend Arbuckle's character during accusations that he was responsible for the death of actress Virginia Rappe. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton's. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Keaton also had reservations about the medium. Battling Butler (1926), a boxing movie, was a commercial success. The film version was released as "A Buster Keaton Production" in 1931. Buster Keaton. 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. Who are Buster Keaton grandchildren? Jimmy assists Spencer Tracy's character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, by readying Culpepper's ultimately-unused boat for his abortive escape. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware. During his time in uniform, he suffered an ear infection that permanently impaired his hearing. None of them were very good. [37], Keaton's last three features had been produced and released independently, under Keaton's control, and fell short of financial expectations at the box office. 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. In 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton. "[22], Keaton said he had so much fun that he sometimes began laughing as his father threw him across the stage. He then moved to feature-length films; several of them, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded. 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. It's a knack. Brother of Harry Stanley Keaton and Louise J. Keaton. Noticing that this caused the audience to laugh less, he adopted his famous deadpan expression when performing. His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. She filed for divorce in 1935 after finding him with Leah Clampitt Sewell, the wife of millionaire Barton Sewell,[88] in a hotel in Santa Barbara. Joseph Talmadge Keaton was the first son born to comic actor Buster Keaton and his wife, actress Natalie Talmadge; he was also a nephew of silent screen actresses Norma and Constance Talmadge. Melissa Talmadge Cox is the granddaughter of Buster Keaton and a long time resident of Cloverdale. No Beer? When she saw the little house, she flew into a rage: she thought the house was much too small, with no place for servants. 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". They had two sons: Joseph, called James[81] (June 2, 1922 February 14, 2007),[82] and Robert (February 3, 1924 July 19, 2009).[83]. Keaton's widow, Eleanor, attended for a couple of years. He lost creative control of his pictures, and, like his father before him, developed a nasty drinking problem. Born June 2, 1922, first born son of Natalie Talmadge and comedian Buster Keaton, nephew of silent screen actresses Norma and Constance Talmadge, Jim attended Blackfox Military . Keaton's art has inspired full academic study. He stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother. In 1949, Keaton appeared on television for the first time. Buster Keaton, original name Joseph Frank Keaton IV, (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. Sarah Porter , Joseph Judson, Isabeau de DAMPIERRE , John de FIENNES, Brangre de CASTILLE , Alfonse Ix de CASTILLE. "It was as long as War and Peace," Keaton recalled. He was named "Joseph" to continue a tradition on his father's sidehe was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keatonand "Frank" for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of the parents' union. 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 1920, Keaton made his first full-length feature, The Saphead, playing the straight man, Bertie "The Lamb" Van Alstyne. He was a student at Blackfox Military Academy and a graduate of Santa Monica High School. Keaton was the world's whipping boy and made the world love him for it. To the world, he was the famous silent film star Buster Keaton, but to Melissa Talmadge Cox of Cloverdale, he was simply Grandpa Buster. 616: Ruth Carbaugh 201; Elaine Weigle 513. His third wife was a dancer named Eleanor Ruth Norris. Cox moved with her family to Cloverdale in the . He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. Because of Keaton's success, and a notorious scandal involving Arbuckle, Comique Films was renamed Buster Keaton Productions. 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. 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. [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. [19] Talmadge decided not to have any more children, banishing Keaton to a separate bedroom; he dated actresses Dorothy Sebastian and Kathleen Key during this period. Buster Keaton Remembered. He would later cite this as the worst business decision of his life in his autobiography. His father owned a traveling show called the 'Mohawk Indian Medicine Company' along with Harry Houdini. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. Spouse: Thelma Ferne WOOD (1905-xxxx) 4454 People 0 Records 0 Sources: Buster William Keaton Sr. found in 22 trees View all. 33. United States, 1924. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. 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. (The restored version of that film, released in 2013, contains a scene where Jimmy and Culpeper talk on the telephone. [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 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. In 2023, Keatons life and work was depicted in the graphic novel biography Buster: A Life in Pictures written by Ryan Barnett and illustrated by Matthew Tavares. A century has passed since Buster Keaton entered the plum decade of his career. In 1914, he told the Detroit News: "The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. [106], Comedian Richard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton's widow Eleanor. Keaton was convinced to star in a short film with Arbuckle, called The Butcher Boy (1917). Go Outside. [71] Keaton directed the film, along with Edward F. Cline. As a baby, he tumbled all the way down a flight of stairs to the landing below. Afterward, I only gradually realized what kind of family I was inheriting. Vance, Jeffrey. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. In the last analysis, no one came near him. It was followed a month later by James Curtis' biography Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. 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. . He'd say, "How about this?" Father of Private and James Talmadge Two of his best films were made in 1924. [23], The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. In addition to appearing in numerous commercials (including one for Alka-Seltzer), Keaton made many guest appearances in both comedies and dramas. He would return often. 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). During this period, he made another film in England, The Invader (released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).[45]. In 1928 film executive Nicholas Schenck arranged a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for Keaton's services. The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera (1936), featuring Keaton in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. [45] The latter was Keaton's last starring feature in his home country. "[12] In 2018, Peter Bogdanovich released The Great Buster: A Celebration, a tribute to Keaton featuring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Werner Herzog and Quentin Tarantino, among others. Marriage: xxxx Ohio, USA: Record information. In 1950, he played himself in Sunset Boulevard. Ex-husband of Natalie Talmadge and Mae Elizabeth Keaton The Society's nickname, the "Damfinos," draws its name from a boat in Keaton's 1921 comedy, The Boat. Keaton had two shows of his own, including The Buster Keaton Comedy Show (1949) and The Buster Keaton Show from 1950 until 1951. This channel is dedicated to the genius of Buster Keaton and family. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. Comment. Everybody else in the studio likes the story. . . Arbuckle also wrote and directed this film. Keatan balanced his work in front and behind the camera very well. Look at his faceas beautiful but as inhuman as a butterflyand you see that utter failure to identify sentiment. 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. Keaton, Eleanor and Jeffrey Vance. Harry N. Abrams, 2001, pg. [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. Keaton grew up on the road, as his parents endlessly . 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. Record information. Free shipping for many products! A great primer about the history of Buster Keaton b. Keaton appeared in 14 Arbuckle shorts between 1917 and 1919, including His Wedding Night (1917) and The Bell Boy (1918). [79], Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. "[28], In February 1917, he met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. 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