Why is buster keaton famous

Tom Dardis has produced the definitive life. Film and Media , Literature. Tom Dardis traces both the development and the decline of this great performer with compassion and accuracy, from his childhood in vaudeville to his glory days as a silent screen star and MGM contract actor, his descent into alcoholism, and his twilight years as a nearly forgotten relic of the era. The pictures add life to the words. This readably packaged and printed book is a must for all silent film fans.

The results are funny and lovely and painfully sad, much like a Keaton movie. In an interview later in his life, Keaton explained that "The average [silent] picture used titles. And the most I ever used was My recipe calls for three heaping teaspoons of granulated sugar in a teacup of warm water. You wet the top and bottom of the brim, and then smooth it out on a clean, hard surface and let it dry to a good stiffness.

I did the earliest ones myself, always—and then I trained my wife. Now she does them for me. He never winked at you. He and Chaplin were my mentors. There was only one Keaton. But in , nearly 40 years after its initial release, Keaton commented on how The General was still funny.

This was The General … But I sneaked into the theater and the laughs were exactly the same as on the day it was first released. As legend has it, he earned the name of "Buster" when he was 18 months old, after falling down a flight of stairs.

Magician Harry Houdini scooped up the child and turning to the boy's parents quipped, "That was a real buster! Keaton quickly grew used to being knocked around a bit. Working with his parents in an act that prided itself on being as rough as it was funny, Keaton was frequently tossed around by his father.

During these performances, Keaton would learn to display the deadpan look that would later become a hallmark of his comedy career. Beginning in , Keaton spent many childhood summers in Muskegon, Michigan, where his father had helped established The Actors Colony.

At the time, the area had become a destination for vaudevillian performers and the community inspired the young entertainer.

Even in his first film, a two-reeler called The Butcher Boy starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Keaton was extreme slapstick, with the young actor being subjected to a range of abuses, from being submerged in molasses to getting bit by a dog. It was an apprenticeship of sorts and through it, Keaton was given full access to the movie-making process.

In Keaton struck out on his own as a filmmaker, first with a series of two-reelers that included the now-classic One Week , The Playhouse and Cops The lineup also included what is perhaps his finest creation, The General , which starred Keaton as a train engineer in the Civil War. Keaton was the full force behind the film, writing and directing it. But while the movie initially proved to be a commercial disappointment, it was later hailed as a pioneering piece of filmmaking.

Woven into his films, of course, was Keaton's trademark comedy, brilliant timing and patented facial expressions. In his early two-reelers the laugh-making included a mastery of the slapstick pie. His work also featured Keaton's penchant for doing his own stunts, and he became somewhat of a Hollywood legend not just for his falls but for his lack of injuries.

At the height of his career, in the mids, Keaton experienced some of the same celebrity as another silent-film star, Charlie Chaplin. In Keaton made the move that he would later call the mistake of his life. With the advent of talkies, Keaton signed on with MGM, where he proceeded to make a string of new sound comedies that fared decently at the box office but lacked the kind of Keaton punch the filmmaker had come to expect from his work.