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According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day. The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. Noticing that this caused the audience to laugh less, he adopted his famous deadpan expression when performing. Keaton said he had so much fun that he sometimes began laughing as his father threw him across the stage. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment.' Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. In 1914, he told the Detroit News: 'The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. Decades later, Keaton said that he was never hurt by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. He was eventually billed as 'The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged', and the overall act as 'The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage'. However, Buster was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones.

This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The young Keaton goaded his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton responded by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. Myra played the saxophone to one side, while Joe and Buster performed center stage. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware. Īt the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. In Keaton's retelling, he was six months old when the incident occurred, and Harry Houdini gave him the nickname. Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including in a 1964 interview with the CBC's Telescope. After the infant sat up and shook off the experience, Pardey remarked, 'He's a regular buster!' After this, Keaton's father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. An actor friend named George Pardey was present one day when the young Keaton took a tumble down a long flight of stairs without injury. Six-year-old Buster and his parents Myra and Joe Keaton, in a publicity photo for their vaudeville actĪccording to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal, Keaton acquired the nickname Buster at the age of about 18 months. His father was Joseph Hallie 'Joe' Keaton, who owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, or the Keaton Houdini Medicine Show Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. He was named Joseph to continue a tradition on his father's side (he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton) and Frank for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of his parents' union.

Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Keaton (née Cutler), was when she went into labor. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award in 1959.Ĭareer Early life in vaudeville His wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. His career declined when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and lost his artistic independence. The General is widely viewed as his masterpiece: Orson Welles considered it 'the greatest comedy ever made.and perhaps the greatest film ever made'. (1924), The General (1926), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded. He then moved to feature-length films several of them, such as Sherlock Jr.

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Cline, Keaton made a series of successful two-reel comedies in the early 1920s, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). Working with independent producer Joseph M. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, and in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's 'extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929' when he 'worked without interruption' as having made him 'the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies'. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname 'The Great Stone Face'. Joseph Frank 'Buster' Keaton (Octo– February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker.

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