Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. While it's debatable Keaton's family life was the root of his deterioration, one factor that certainly bothered him was his marriage. Joseph Frank Keaton (1895 - 1966) After the company shut its doors in 1937, Keaton was re-signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but only as a gagman. This is discussed in the TCM documentary Buster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt, with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times. Actor James Mason had bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classic The Boat. Buster that the judge thought my mother was the bride! Two years later she changed their sons' last name to Talmadge. Photograph: Ronald Grant. A scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to stand still on a particular spot. Ex-husband of Natalie Talmadge and Mae Elizabeth Keaton Late in his career, Keaton made cameos in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, Chaplin's Limelight, Samuel Beckett's Film and the Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time". Why did Buster Keaton stop making movies? 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. [13] The General has placed highly on the Sight & Sound poll, and Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator also received multiple votes. He directed three short films in 1938. [8][9][10][11] Welles said Keaton "was beyond all praisea very great artist, and one of the most beautiful men I ever saw on the screen. [71] Keaton directed the film, along with Edward F. Cline. Please try again. 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. In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. Since then, the Something's Gotta . In 1965 he appeared on the CBS television special A Salute to Stan Laurel, a tribute to the comedian and friend of Keaton who had died earlier that year. Atria: 432 . Who are Buster Keaton grandchildren? 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. 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. He made me believe in make-believe." For most grandfathers, this means doing puzzles on the living room floor or pushing their grandchild on a swing. 4.47. [74][75] Critic and film historian Imogen Sara Smith stated about Keaton's style: "the coolness and subtlety of his style [is] very cinematic in terms of recognising that the camera can pick up very, very small effects".[74]. A two-day pass to the festival will cost $40, or a one-day pass for $25. Pioneer in Film Industry. [79], Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. [98] A 1987 documentary, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, won two Emmy Awards.[99]. TCM voice-over, October 2011, "Buster Keaton Month". [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. James Curtis. Who was I to say I was right and everyone was wrong? Known as "The Great Stone Face," Keaton got big laughs out of his relentlessly blank expression in silent film comedies like The Saphead (1920), Sherlock, Jr. (1924), and his famous The General (1927). 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 . In 1933, he married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing. I do all that but I do a lot more with my three-year-old grandson. [59] In 1961, he starred in The Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. 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. . Keaton suffered from several personal crises as well. Keaton played every role in the movie, which was set in a theater. The General, set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains,[33] including an epic locomotive chase. His film career was briefly interrupted by military service during World War I. Orson Welles interview, from the Kino November 10, 2009 Blu-Ray edition of The General. 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. He also began using a moving camera, at a time when many of his peers continued to use stationary ones. [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." 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 . In College (1927), Keaton was engaged in every athletic sport except football, but it was a disappointment. The General was a Civil War romance, that featured many impressive chase scenes and one very expensive special effects shot. However, Thalberg did allow Keaton to stage the gags, including long stretches of pantomime, and agreed to send a crew to Keaton's own mansion for exterior shots. Keaton was the world's whipping boy and made the world love him for it. By the time he left the act to star in motion pictures with Fatty Arbuckle at age 22, he had already been doing slapstick comedy for over 86% of his life. 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. Working with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck and filmmaker Edward F. 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). Adding to his mystique was a background on the vaudeville stage with all its tricks and sleight of hand. He was, in fact, the star and a skilled acrobat. Natalie would glare and fly into a rage. He was every member of the audience as well as every performer. He received the nickname "Buster" while still an infant. [48] The screenplay, by Sidney Sheldon, who also directed the film, was loosely based on Keaton's life but contained many factual errors and merged his three wives into one character. [73] The film's opening intertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert W. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to "Francis". WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 966 Hollywood Loses Tavo Hedda Hopper, Lamar Green 217. In Our Hospitality (1923), a film about a mountain feud, Keaton shot both a novel train scene and waterfall scene on location. [100] Hirschfeld said that modern film stars were more difficult to depict, that silent film comedians such as Laurel and Hardy and Keaton "looked like their caricatures". The Colony celebrate Joe Keaton's birthday with a parade through Bluffton. "[40], When the studio began making talking films, Keaton was enthused about the new technology and wanted to make his next film, Spite Marriage, with sound. 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. "[20]:17 After this, Keaton's father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 - February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. When the Educational series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, supplying material for the final three Marx Brothers MGM films: At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941); these were not as artistically successful as the Marxes' previous MGM features. The audience roared. [86] On July 1, 1942, the 18-year-old Robert and the 20-year-old Joseph made the name change permanent after their mother won a court petition. Keaton had a hard time capturing the promise of Sherlock Jr. over the next few years. From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis--a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern--and irresistible--today as they . The innovative special effects he developed for The Playhouse made him an early leader in the field. Buster Keaton is American by birth. He took the camera back to his hotel room where he dismantled and reassembled it by morning. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them in television revivals. "Introduction." Arbuckle also wrote and directed this film. Buster Keaton Remembered. On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. After returning to the U.S. in 1919, Keaton appeared in several more Arbuckle short films such as A Country Hero (1919). His greatest works from . [69] Other favorite targets were cinematic plots, structures and devices. His career declined when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and lost his artistic independence. His great period began in 1923 when he appeared in The Three Ages and a year later he made a full length comedy . Username and password are case sensitive. Aerial stuntmen and daredevils from around 1920s - 1940s. The laconic Keaton and the rambunctious Durante offered enough contrast to function as a team, resulting in three very successful films: Speak Easily (1932), The Passionate Plumber (1932), and What! I Image: Wikimedia Commons. While the movie had an impressive tornado sequence and an interesting topic (a Mississippi riverboat race) which pleased critics, Steamboat Bill Jr. was not a commercial success. The most famous was legendary silent film star, Buster Keaton. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day. Husband of Eleanor Ruth Keaton On February 14, 2007, James Talmadge (born Joseph Talmadge Keaton) passed away peacefully with his wife of 63 years, the love of his life, Barbara Talmadge, by his side. Director William Asher recalled: I always loved Buster Keaton. He would bring me bits and routines. [16][17][18] According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal,[19] Keaton acquired the nickname Buster at the age of 18 months. A drastic shift for silent film icon Charlie Chaplin, A Woman of Paris exchanged slapstick comedy for romantic drama and was the first of only . They divorced in 1936[89] at great financial cost to Keaton. Shortly after his son's birth, Joseph Keaton changed his son's name to Joseph Francis Keaton. Their routine had relied on physical prowess and exact timing, and required reliable performers. MGM had been featuring comical musician Cliff Edwards in Keaton's films. In The Playhouse (1921), he parodied his contemporary Thomas H. Ince, Hart's producer, who indulged in over-crediting himself in his film productions. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton's later reputation as "The Great Stone Face", he often smiled and even laughed in them. It's true that Keaton was born in Piqua on October 4, 1895but it wasn't his home. Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd advised him against making the move, cautioning that he would lose his independence. Mini Bio (1) Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. 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! That same year, he was put under contract by Educational Films and returned to making shorts. By 1917, Joseph Keaton had developed severe problems with alcohol and the family's act was dissolved. Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. [78], Buster Keaton's comedy endures not just because he had a face that belongs on Mount Rushmore, at once hauntingly immovable and classically American, but because that face was attached to one of the most gifted actors and directors who ever graced the screen. ", "The Narrative-Machine: Buster Keaton's Cinematic Comedy, Deleuze's Recursion Function and the Operational Aesthetic", "Keaton Chose $40 in Films to $750 on Stage", Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase: A Biography, "My Career at the Rear / Buster Keaton in World War I", "Muskegon: Buster Keaton documentary to focus on early life in Muskegon", "Reviews: The General/Steamboat Bill Jr", "Velocipede used by Buster Keaton in the film Our Hospitality", "Moving Pictures: Buster Keaton's 'General' Pulls In To PFA. 'Camera Man' unspools the colorful life of silent film star Buster Keaton: By age 5, Keaton was a star in his family's vaudeville act; he went on to star in and direct silent films, performing jaw . 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