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Happy birthday, Buster Keaton!

 

Roger Ebert called him "the greatest actor-director in the history of cinema." Orson Welles hailed him as "beyond all praise...a very great artist...a superb director." In later life, he would serve as mentor to Lucille Ball and write gags for Red Skelton and the Marx Brothers. "He was an athlete," said Dick Van Dyke. "I saw him do things that no human being should be able to do." After a long, dark time, he would live to see his work rediscovered and to hear critics praise him as the greatest. His work would inspire a diverse array of artists, directors and performers, from Jackie Chan, Johnnie Knoxville and Bill Cosby to animators Walt Disney and Chuck Jones to directors Frank Capra and Mel Brooks.

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was born 118 years ago today (October 4) to vaudevillian parents in Kansas during a break in touring. By the age of 5, Buster was the center and star of their act, The Three Keatons, a knockabout act that depended on young Buster's acrobatic talent, quick thinking, and inborn comedic skills. It was during these years that the family realized that a blank look garnered more laughs for Buster than any other reaction, and at an early age the boy adopted the deadpan expression that would become his trademark in film.

Buster, with parents Myra and Joe

Keaton and younger brother Harry in a Browniekar, NYC, ca. 1910

A rare dramatic role: 10-year-old Buster as Little Lord Fauntleroy

An apocryphal story has Buster earning his nickname from magician Harry Houdini after the latter witnessed the boy tumbling down the stairs. More likely he earned it from the Keatons' rough-and-tumble stage act: the term "buster" was vaudevillian slang for a fall and a fitting monikor for a child who was billed as "The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged." And despite accusations of abuse, The Three Keatons touring act was one of the most popular of its kind, earning rave reviews and all-around praise for its pint-sized star.

By 1917, though, the act had fallen on hard times, and his father's increasing alcohol abuse and violent outbursts led Buster to break up the act and travel to New York and Broadway, where he was quickly signed as a solo comedian for "The Passing Show of 1917," a variety showcase at the Winter Garden Theater. A chance meeting during rehearsals led Keaton to quit and go into another direction instead: moving pictures.

Some years earlier, The Three Keatons had been approached by Thomas Edison, who wanted to film the act; Buster's father had turned the offer down flat, feeling as many theater and vaudevillians did that movies were a passing fad and ruinous to the careers of performers. Now on his own, longtime film fan Buster Keaton readily accepted an offer to join a troupe supporting the highest paid film comedian at that time, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

L to R: Keaton, Arbuckle, Luke the dog, Alice Lake, and Al St. John

Keaton later said, "The first thing I did in the studio was to want to tear that camera to pieces. I had to know how that film got in the cutting room, what you did to it there, and how you made things mesh and how you finally got the picture together."  Under Arbuckle's tutelage, he quickly learned, and by their third short film, Keaton had risen to 'co-director' status. 

His career was interrupted, however, when America entered World War I; they had just complete the twelfth short film when Keaton was drafted. He would spend nearly seven months in France, remembering later, "I slept ever night but one on the ground or on the floor of mills, barns and stables." Keaton would walk away from the experience deaf in one ear, the result of illness brought on wartime conditions.

The Saphead (1920)

The next years, however, were a boon. Arbuckle moved on to feature films, and Keaton was finally given the chance to make his own films. The first short film release, "One Week," was widely hailed by contemporaries as one of the best films of 1919. After a series of highly-successful short films, Keaton was given the chance in 1920 to star in his first feature film, The Saphead, though the experience of being in a scripted film (with very little slapstick) was not to his liking.

The Saphead was essentially a remake of the a 1915 movie called The Lamb, which was based on a successful 1913 Broadway play called The New Henrietta, which was based on the 1901 play, The Henrietta, by Bronson Howard. 

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. had played the role the role of "Bertie" in the stage play and the 1915 movie; allegedly, it was he who suggested Keaton play the role.

On the set of College (1927)

Over the next eight years, Keaton would do things his way, churning out a remarkable (and in many ways, remarkably modern) body of work, including Steamboat Bill, Jr., Sherlock, Jr., and what some (including Buster) have listed as his greatest film, The General. 

He became as well-known for his dangerous stuntwork as for his comedy, performing all of his stunts himself (with a single exception), and produced some of the most iconic images known to film.

The most expensive stunt of its day: the train wreck in The General (1926)

Limelight (1952)

Though he would make the transition into sound pictures, personal problems and resentment of the all-controlling studio system at MGM resulted in a career tailspin. After years in relative obscurity, he found a new medium in television, hosting his own local show in Los Angeles before going on to appearances on Ed Sullivan, Candid Camera, The Twilight Zone, and other shows of the '50s and '60s. 

On the set of Sunset Boulevard

He made a comeback as a movie actor, as well, appearing alongside Charlie Chaplin in Limelight, as "Erronius" in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and in a cameo as one of Gloria Swanson's bridge-playing friends in Sunset Boulevard. By the time of his passing in 1966, Keaton was again lauded by critics and new generations of film fans -- and his influence still endures.

The tUnE-yArDs provide music for a Buster Keaton filmfest, San Francisco

Check out this week's display of Buster Keaton dvds (as well as the works of his comedic contemporaries and heirs) near the New Books shelves in the library.

"In the last analysis, nobody came near him," Orson Welles said. "I wish I'd known him better than I did. A tremendously nice person, you know, but also a man of secrets -- I can't even imagine what they were."

Clowning with the crew: The High Sign (1921)