A short bio about Buster Keaton

A great article-length bio about Buster Keaton by Loren Kantor on Spice Today.

Why write about Buster Keaton in a blog dedicated to early cinema and Alice Guy? Because Herbert Blaché, Alice's husband, directed a few films in Hollywood before the transition to sound, and one of them was The Saphead, the first feature film starring Buster Keaton.

I especially like this little bio because it vividly illustrates the ups and downs even the greatest career can have. 

Here's how it starts:

Buster Keaton was one of the three great silent film comedians (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd). Born into a performing family, Keaton’s father Joe owned a traveling vaudeville show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company. At the age of 18 months, Keaton fell down a flight of stairs without injury. Houdini observed the event and said, “That was a real buster.” The nickname stuck.

 

You can read the rest of the article here.