Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton was born October 4, 1895, in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Cutler, itinerant vaudevillians who worked a traveling medicine show before the theater circuit. He got his nickname at 18 months, after tumbling down a flight of stairs unhurt, and by three he was a working performer in The Three Keatons, the act his parents built around throwing him. His father threw him literally, into scenery, into the orchestra pit, sometimes into the audience, with a suitcase handle sewn into the boy's clothes to make him easier to grip and fling. Keaton learned early that landing safely mattered more than looking hurt, and that the surest laugh came from a face that showed nothing at all.

Keaton learned filmmaking under Roscoe Arbuckle starting in February 1917 and had his own production unit by 1920, writing, directing, and starring in one two-reeler after another with no cuts hiding the danger. In The General (1926), a Civil War chase Orson Welles later called the greatest comedy ever made, and in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), where he stood motionless as a two-ton building facade fell around him, missing his body by inches marked out in advance, the stunts were real and the camera never lied about it. During Sherlock Jr. (1924), a torrent of water from a stunt gag broke his neck; he did not learn this until years later, having worked through the headache. In 1928 he signed away his independence to MGM, a decision he later called the worst of his life.

MGM's contract gave Keaton a bigger budget and took away the one thing his comedy needed, control. 'You had to requisition a toothpick in triplicate,' he said of a studio that decided even his transition to sound pictures for him. His marriage to Natalie Talmadge, whom he married in 1921 and with whom he had two sons, collapsed under the strain; she banished him to a separate bedroom, divorced him in 1932, and permanently changed both boys' surnames to Talmadge a decade later. Keaton's drinking, always present, became constant. His absences were costing the studio roughly 3,000 dollars a day when Louis B. Mayer found him at a party in his own dressing room and fired him, on February 2, 1933, 'for good and sufficient cause.' He was briefly committed during the breakdown that followed.

He got sober through aversion therapy and rebuilt a career out of two-reel shorts, character parts, and one credited appearance beside Chaplin in Limelight (1952), the only time the two ever shared a screen. Eleanor Norris, whom he married in 1940, stayed married to him for the rest of his life and helped manage the comeback. Lung cancer killed him on February 1, 1966, in Woodland Hills, California; doctors let him believe, to the end, that he only had bronchitis. Six of his films now sit in the National Film Registry, and Orson Welles called him simply the greatest of all the clowns in the history of cinema.

Buster Keaton's life against the full span of the corpus.

• One Week film
  Early solo two-reeler, built entirely around real stunt gags 1920
• Sherlock Jr. film
  A stunt during filming broke his neck without his knowledge 1924
• The General film
  Civil War epic Orson Welles called the greatest comedy ever made 1926
• Steamboat Bill, Jr. film
  The falling building-facade stunt, cleared by inches 1928
• The Cameraman film
  His last film with real creative control before MGM tightened its grip 1928

• October 4, 1895 aged 0 Born in Piqua, Kansas
• 1899 aged ~4 Joins the family vaudeville act, The Three Keatons
• February 1917 aged 21 Meets Roscoe Arbuckle and enters film
• 1924 aged ~29 Breaks his neck unknowingly during a Sherlock Jr. stunt
• 1926 aged ~31 Releases The General
• 1928 aged ~33 Signs a contract with MGM, ending his creative independence
• February 2, 1933 aged 37 Fired by MGM 'for good and sufficient cause'
• 1952 aged ~57 Appears on screen with Charlie Chaplin in Limelight
• February 1, 1966 aged 70 Dies of lung cancer in Woodland Hills, California

• Charlie Chaplin 1889–1977
  British-American actor and filmmaker whose Tramp character became an icon of the silent film era. co-starred with in Limelight
• Orson Welles 1915–1985
  Director, actor, and broadcaster whose innovations in film, radio, and theater reshaped American visual and dramatic storytelling. praised by