When at six months he tumbled down a flight of stairs unharmed he was given the name "Buster" by Harry Houdini who, along with W.C. Fields, Bill Robinson ("Bojangles"), Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson shared headlines with The Three Keatons: Buster, his father Joe Keaton and mother Myra Keaton. Their act, one of the most dangerous in vaudeville, was about how to discipline a prankster child. Buster was thrown all over the stage and even into the audience. No matter what the stunt, he was poker-faced. By age 21 his father was so alcoholic the stunts became too dangerous to perform and the act dissolved. He first saw a movie studio in March 1917 and on April 23 his debut film, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's The Butcher Boy, was released. He stayed with Fatty through 15 two-reelers, even though he was offered much more to sign with Fox or Warner Bros. after returning from ten months with the U.S. Army (40th Infantry Division) in France. His first full-length feature, The Saphead, established him as a star in his own right. By the middle of 1921 he had his own production company--Buster Keaton Productions--and was writing, directing and starring in his own films. With a small and close team around him, Keaton created some of the most beautiful and imaginative films of the silent era. The General, his favorite, was one of the last films over which he had artistic control. In 1928, he reluctantly signed with MGM after his contract with independent producer Joe Schenk expired. MGM quickly began to enforce their rigid, mechanized style of film-making on Keaton, swamping him with gag-writers and scripts. He fought against it for a time, and the compromise was initially fruitful, his first film for MGM - _Cameraman, The (1928)_ - being one of his finest. But with his creativity becoming increasingly stifled, he began to drink excessively, despondent at having to perform material that was beneath him. Ironically, his films around 1930 were his most successful to date in terms of box-office, which confirmed to MGM that their formula was right. His drinking led to a disregard for schedules and erratic behaviour on the MGM lot, and a disastrous confrontation with Louis Mayer resulted in him being fired. The diplomatic producer Irving Thalberg attempted to smooth things over but Keaton was past caring. By 1932 he was a divorced alcoholic, getting work where he could, mostly in short comedies. In 1935 he entered a mental hospital. MGM rehired him in 1937 as a $100-a-week gag-man (his salary ten years before was more than ten times this amount). The occasional film was a boost to this steady income. In 1947 his career rebounded with a live appearance at Cirque Medrano in Paris. In 1952 James Mason, who then owned Keaton's Hollywood mansion, found a secret store of presumably lost nitrate stock of many of Buster's early films; film historian and archivist Raymond Rohauer began a serious collection/preservation of Buster's work. In 1957 Buster appeared with Charles Chaplin in Limelight and his film biography, The Buster Keaton Story was released. Two years later he received a special Oscar for his life work in comedy, and he began to receive the accolades he so richly deserved, with festivals around the world honoring his work. He died at 70 years of age.


Sunset Blvd. (1950): $1,000
Love Nest on Wheels (1937): $2,500
Ditto (1937): $2,500
Jail Bait (1937): $2,500
Mixed Magic (1936): $2,500
The Chemist (1936): $2,500
Blue Blazes (1936): $2,500
Grand Slam Opera (1936): $2,500
Three on a Limb (1936): $2,500
The Timid Young Man (1935): $2,500
The E-Flat Man (1935): $2,500
Tars and Stripes (1935): $2,500
Hayseed Romance (1935): $2,500
One Run Elmer (1935): $2,500
Palooka from Paducah (1935): $2,500

Son of Joe Keaton. Father of Buster Keaton Jr. and Bob Talmadge. His older son was born during his marriage to Natalie Talmadge. Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA. Fractured his neck while filming Sherlock Jr. (1924) and did not learn about it until a doctor saw X-rays of his neck during a routine physical examination many years later. He was already quite ill with the cancer that would eventually kill him by the time he made his last completed film, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He used a stunt double in this film, as well as most of the films he made as an MGM contract player. Before signing with MGM in 1928, he had performed all of his own stunts, and even doubled for cast members in his own films, as in Sherlock Jr. (1924), where he played both himself, riding on the handlebars of a motorcycle, and the man who falls off the back of it. Because most of his childhood was spent on vaudeville with his parents, he had few peers. However, he enjoyed a more regular childhood during his family's annual summer getaways to an Actor's Colony on Lake Michigan in Muskegon, Michigan. In fact, the city of Muskegon has erected a historical marker to note his stomping ground. He became an alcoholic when he his career collapsed around 1930, only kicking his habit and regaining his self-esteem when he married Eleanor Norris (Eleanor Keaton), who was his wife from 1940 to his death in 1966. Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 523-531. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987. When he married Natalie Talmadge, the Talmadge family was one of the great acting dynasties in both theater and film, and the gossip in Hollywood was that Keaton married her to gain respect in the industry, a rumor he never quite lived down during his peak. Ironically, Keaton is now a film legend, while most people would be hard-pressed to answer who the Talmadges are. He often surrounded himself with tall and heavy-set actors in his films, typically as his antagonist, to make his character seem to be at as much of a physical disadvantage as possible. The similarly diminutive Charlie Chaplin (Charles Chaplin) also did this. In one scene in the film Sherlock Jr. (1924) at a train station, he was hanging off of a tube connected to a water basin. The water poured out and washed him on to the track, fracturing his neck. This footage appears in the released film. Was hearing-impaired since 1918, when he was in Germany fighting the war. Met Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle for the first time strolling down Broadway in New York City. Arbuckle was with Keaton's old vaudeville acquittance Lou Anger, who introduced them. Arbuckle immediately asked Keaton to visit the Colony Studio, where he was set to begin a series of comedies for Joseph M. Schenck. The famous comedy team was born. Said he learned everything about movie-making and comedy from 'Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle' . There is much legend regarding the conception of his nickname, Buster. Many attribute the name to the legendary Harry Houdini, who was the partner of Joe Keaton (Buster's father) in the medicine-show group "Kathleen Marownen", after he saw a young Buster fall down a set of stairs without any injury. Others have said that it was Joe who conceived the name after he saw Buster's accident, while still others say that Joe Keaton fabricated the incident for a good story to tell on vaudeville. Which of these stories is actually true is unknown. Wanted to become an engineer as a child Grand-uncle of Camille Keaton. Is mentioned in the song "Cinéma" by Paola Del Medico. He died the same day as his The Slippery Pearls (1931), Speak Easily (1932) and Sunset Blvd. (1950) co-star Hedda Hopper. He is believed to be the first person to use "Buster" as a name, and popularized its usage ever after.