Happy 118th, Buster Keaton!

Born October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton is considered one of the greatest comic actors of all time, and many of today's stars still cite him as an influence.

Buster's parents were vaudeville performers, and he joined their act at the age of three and continued to perform with them for nearly 20 years as The Three Keatons.

In 1917, he befriended Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and he was featured in over a dozen of Fatty's films over the next few years.

Buster Keaton with Fatty Arbuckle and Alice Lake in the 1917 short film Coney Island.

In 1920, Buster began appearing on his own in shorts and feature-length films, which turned him into a star. Just a year later he started his own production company and was writing, directing, and starring in his own films.

In 1926, Buster made The General, which today is considered one of the greatest films ever made, but at the time it was a huge box office failure.

Buster Keaton in The General (1926).

He was then persuaded to sign with MGM, a decision he later deeply regretted as he found the studio system severely limited his creative input. Buster started to drink excessively, and by 1933 he found himself fired from MGM and divorced from his first wife, Natalie Talmadge.

He continued to make short films for Educational Films and Columbia Films throughout the 1930s, and in 1940 married dancer Eleanor Norris, a marriage that lasted until his death.

Buster had smaller roles and cameo appearances in a number of films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, notably In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1952).

In 1959, Buster received an honorary Academy Award for his contributions to film.

He continued to work throughout the 1960s, mostly in television, until his death from lung cancer on February 1, 1966, at the age of 70.

 

Happy birthday, Buster.