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Buster Keaton Biography

Buster Keaton

"A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny."

Joseph Frank Keaton IV was born in Piqua, Kansas on Oct. 4, 1895. His parents, Joe and Myra were vaudevillian performers who added Joseph Jr. to their act when he was three years old. By then he was Buster because when he was a few months old, he tumbled down a flight of stairs and Harry Houdini said Wow! That was a buster. The name stuck. Buster’s parents performed one of the most dangerous acts in vaudeville – throwing Buster all over the stage and into the audience. The act eventually became too dangerous because his father, Joe, was too alcoholic to perform. Buster became the pioneer of the silent film era comedians, taking his vaudeville talent to the screen and appearing in his first film, Fatty Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy in 1917. He and Fatty made 15 two-reelers after he returned from serving in the U.S. Army during WWI. His first full-length film was The Saphead that made him a star and by the middle of 1921, he had his own production company where he wrote, directed and starred in his own films.

In 1928 he signed with MGM where he lost all creative control to the studio. His life was unraveling into alcoholism, despondence and mental illness but was reinvented in 1947 at a live appearance at Cirque Medrano in Paris. The actor James Mason was living in Buster’s former mansion where he found a stock of Buster’s early films and with archivists began a collection/preservation of Buster Keaton’s early works. His film career was fully recovered by 1950 when he appeared as himself in Sunset Boulevard and was Charlie Chaplin’s partner in Chaplin’s 1952 film Limelight. Before Buster died on Feb. 1, 1966, he was being recognized for his life work in comedy with awards and film festivals held to honor him.