History Creator / BusterKeaton

Things turned around for Keaton in the 1940s. He met and married his third wife, Eleanor Norris, who helped him get his drinking under control and sometimes worked as his partner in comedy routines. This led to Buster's engagement at France's Cirque Medrano, where he drew enthusiastic audiences. A 1949 article by James Agee in ''LIFE'' magazine (see quote above) renewed interest in Keaton, and his career picked up: he starred in a short-lived TV series; guest-starred on other shows, including ''Series/TheTwilightZone'', ''Series/{{Route 66}}'', and ''Series/CandidCamera''; appeared in many commercials; and performed memorable cameos and supporting roles in such films as ''InTheGoodOldSummertime'', ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'' (playing himself), ''AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''{{Limelight}}'', ''ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', ''AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'', and the AmericanInternationalPictures "Beach" movies starring FrankieAvalon and AnnetteFunicello. He lived to see his silent films preserved,(including some supposedly lost films actor JamesMason found in the house that Keaton previously owned) and reintroduced for a new generation, and received a Career Oscar.

Things turned around for Keaton in the 1940s. He met and married his third wife, Eleanor Norris, who helped him get his drinking under control and sometimes worked as his partner in comedy routines. This led to Buster's engagement at France's Cirque Medrano, where he drew enthusiastic audiences. A 1949 article by James Agee in ''LIFE'' magazine (see quote above) renewed interest in Keaton, and his career picked up: he starred in a short-lived TV series; guest-starred on other shows, including ''Series/TheTwilightZone'', ''Series/{{Route 66}}'', and ''Series/CandidCamera''; appeared in many commercials; and performed memorable cameos and supporting roles in such films as ''InTheGoodOldSummertime'', ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'' (playing himself), ''AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''{{Limelight}}'', ''ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', ''AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'', and the AmericanInternationalPictures "Beach" movies starring FrankieAvalon and AnnetteFunicello. He lived to see his silent films preserved and reintroduced for a new generation, and received a Career Oscar.

* ByWallThatIsHoley: Keaton didn't invent it, but the gag will always be linked to him.

Unfortunately, stress from repeated clashes with MGM management, the loss of his independence and artistic control, and a divorce from his first wife, Natalie Talmadge (in which she was awarded sole custody of their two sons), caused Keaton's drinking to develop into outright alcoholism. During the 1930s, Keaton slipped from the spotlight. He made two-reel comedies for low-budget outfits like Educational Pictures and Columbia Pictures (the latter has since become a major film production and distribution company), and worked for MGM as a gag man (where he mentored [[ILoveLucy Lucille Ball]] before she got her break as a television comedienne and created the famous stateroom sequence in the MarxBrothers' ''ANightAtTheOpera''). At one point he was institutionalized because of his drinking. He wed one of his nurses, Mae Scriven, possibly during an alcoholic blackout; [[FromBadToWorse the relationship ended disastrously]] (among other things, [[KickTheDog she stole his dog and sold it]]).

||HardLuck ||''GoWest'' ||

* In Creator/StephenKing's novel ''NeedfulThings'', Castle Rock's First Selectman, Danforth Keeton, is nicknamed "Buster". It's also his BerserkButton.

* The eponymous character played by Peter Boyle in ''{{The X-Files}}'' episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" is named after a writer/director who worked with BusterKeaton (and committed suicide with a gun he'd borrowed from Keaton), while Detectives Cline and Havez are references to other Keaton collaborators, writer/director/actor Edward F. Cline and writer Jean C. Havez.

-->''"He was by his whole style and nature so much the most deeply 'silent' of the silent comedians that even a smile was as deafeningly out of key as a yell...No other comedian could do as much with the dead-pan. He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things; a one track mind near the track’s end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive; an awe-inspiring sort of patience and power to endure, proper to granite but uncanny in flesh and blood."''

||TheHauntedHouse ||''SevenChances'' ||

* In [[http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/DC_Special_Series_Vol_1_15 DC Specials Series #15,]] the story "Death Strikes at Midnight and Three" is about a race between the {{Batman}} and the Gotham mob to find a blind accountant willing to testify against the gangster who employed him. The accountant's hiding place -- a theater showing BusterKeaton films (he reasoned that no one would look for a blind man at a silent movie).

* Bleu Finnegan, the main character of ''BlueMonday,'' is a BusterKeaton fan.

** Buster actually got his stage name after falling down a flight of stairs at the age of a few months, getting up unharmed. Harry Houdini (yes, ''that'' HarryHoudini) said it was "quite a buster," meaning a fall.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'': In the episode "Emperor Joker!", one of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker's {{mook}}s is a huge, muscular version of Keaton (the overall effect, given Keaton's square-jawed, unsmiling face, is a bit like a caricature of Creator/BorisKarloff as the ''[[Film/{{Frankenstein 1931}} Frankenstein's]] monster.)

Things turned around for Keaton in the 1940s. He met and married his third wife, Eleanor Norris, who helped him get his drinking under control and sometimes worked as his partner in comedy routines. This led to Buster's engagement at France's Cirque Medrano, where he drew enthusiastic audiences. A 1949 article by James Agee in ''LIFE'' magazine (see quote above) renewed interest in Keaton, and his career picked up: he starred in a short-lived TV series; guest-starred on other shows, including ''Series/TheTwilightZone'', ''{{Route 66}}'', and ''Series/CandidCamera''; appeared in many commercials; and performed memorable cameos and supporting roles in such films as ''InTheGoodOldSummertime'', ''SunsetBoulevard'' (playing himself), ''AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''{{Limelight}}'', ''ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', ''AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'', and the AmericanInternationalPictures "Beach" movies starring FrankieAvalon and AnnetteFunicello. He lived to see his silent films preserved and reintroduced for a new generation, and received a Career Oscar.

* VindicatedByHistory: Happily, he even lived to see it.

* Several JackieChan movies imitate Keaton's stunts almost shot for shot.

* An ''AllInTheFamily'' episode opens with the Bunkers and Stivics returning home from seeing a Buster Keaton film at a revival house. Significantly, it's depicted as one of the rare activities that Archie and Mike enjoy equally.

* In IanFleming's novel ''DiamondsAreForever'', there's a scene where JamesBond and [[BondGirl Tiffany Case]] escape from a gangster's lair via a railroad handcar. At one point she tells him, "That was quite an exit. Like something out of an old Buster Keaton film."

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'': In the episode "Emperor Joker!", one of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker's {{mook}}s is a huge, muscular version of Keaton (the overall effect, given Keaton's square-jawed, unsmiling face, is a bit like a caricature of BorisKarloff as the ''[[Film/{{Frankenstein 1931}} Frankenstein's]] monster.)

* MemeticOutfit: The Hat. The title-page and chapter-heading illustrations of his "as-told-to" autobiography, ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-World-Slapstick-Capo-Paperback/dp/0306801787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282462115&sr=1-1 My Wonderful World of Slapstick,]]'' are a drawing of his eyes and The Hat. '''Just''' his eyes and The Hat.
** Played with in ''SteamboatBillJr'': Steamboat Bill (Sr.) is looking for his son, Willie (played by Buster), whom he hasn't seen in years, at the train station, with only the information that Willie will be wearing a white carnation. He goes up to a man bent down to fiddle with his luggage, such that only the hat and a white carnation is visible, whom he assumes to be his son, only to find that the man is black. The second time is when he's having Willie try on new hats at the haberdasher's. '''Every other hat''' that Willie tries on is a variation of the similar-looking boater (larger, and typically straw), which his father continues to veto. One hat that gets vetoed harder than the rest by his father is a miniature derby, placed rakishly on Willie's head a la Creator/CharlieChaplin. When the trademark porkpie hat ''does'' appear, Buster sees it in the mirror and quickly ditches it, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_DiaL8ETDw as seen here]].
** In ''Film/OurHospitality'', Keaton plays an early-1800s dandy - riding an early, bumpy train, he keeps hitting the ceiling and crushing his top hat down past his eyes. He finally takes it off and replaces it with his usual flat hat.

* LeParkour

Eventually, when the act's fortunes declined and Joe got too drunk and disorderly to work with safely[[note]] Speaking of safety, Keaton repeatedly stated in interviews that he never suffered an injury as a result of being thrown; their act was designed to look improvised and violent, but in reality was quite planned and controlled.[[/note]], Buster Keaton struck out on his own. He got into film with his good friend, [[FattyArbuckle Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle]], then one of the top comedy movie stars. Following Fatty's tragic fall from grace, Keaton formed his own production company, starring in and directing some of the most innovative comedy films of his day. From this period, his full-length film ''TheGeneral'' is still considered one of the best silent films ever made. He was also never afraid of new technology: for instance, for a major silent movie star at the dawn of sound films, he ''wanted'' to get into them right away. After his company was dissolved, Keaton signed a contract with [[MetroGoldwynMayer MGM]]. The best of his MGM films are the silents ''TheCameraman'' and ''SpiteMarriage''. He then began making sound pictures in which he was often teamed with JimmyDurante.

Unfortunately, stress from repeated clashes with MGM management, the loss of his independence and artistic control, and a divorce from his first wife, Natalie Talmadge (in which she was awarded sole custody of their two sons), caused Keaton's drinking to develop into outright alcoholism. During the 1930s, Keaton slipped from the spotlight. He made two-reel comedies for low-budget outfits like Educational Pictures and Columbia Pictures (the latter has since become a major film production and distribution company), and worked for MGM as a gag man (where he mentored [[ILoveLucy Lucille Ball]] before she got her break as a television comedienne and created the famous stateroom sequence in the MarxBrothers' ''ANightAtTheOpera''). At one point he was institutionalized because of his drinking. He wed one of his nurses, Mae Scriven, possibly during an alcoholic blackout; [[ItGotWorse the relationship ended disastrously]] (among other things, [[KickTheDog she stole his dog and sold it]]).

* ItGotWorse

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* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'': In the episode "Emperor Joker!", one of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker's {{mook}}s is a huge, muscular version of Keaton (the overall effect, given Keaton's square-jawed, unsmiling face, is a bit like a caricature of BorisKarloff as the [[{{Frankenstein1931}} Frankenstein]] monster.)

* In ''[[SixteenThirtyTwo 1632]]'', the first movie the uptimers share with the downtimers once they get the TV station up and running is ''Film/TheGeneral''. While the people who run the studio want Rebecca Abarbanel to explain the film's plot beforehand, she refuses because "Keaton's comedy is timeless". She's right.

Things turned around for Keaton in the 1940s. He met and married his third wife, Eleanor Norris, who helped him get his drinking under control and sometimes worked as his partner in comedy routines. This led to Buster's engagement at France's Cirque Medrano, where he drew enthusiastic audiences. A 1949 article by James Agee in ''LIFE'' magazine (see quote above) renewed interest in Keaton, and his career picked up: he starred in a short-lived TV series; guest-starred on other shows, including ''Series/TheTwilightZone'', ''{{Route 66}}'', and ''Series/CandidCamera''; appeared in many commercials; and performed memorable cameos and supporting roles in such films as ''InTheGoodOldSummertime'', ''SunsetBoulevard'' (playing himself), ''AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', CharlieChaplin's ''{{Limelight}}'', ''ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', ''AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'', and the AmericanInternationalPictures "Beach" movies starring FrankieAvalon and AnnetteFunicello. He lived to see his silent films preserved and reintroduced for a new generation, and received a Career Oscar.

** Played with in ''SteamboatBillJr'': Steamboat Bill (Sr.) is looking for his son, Willie (played by Buster), whom he hasn't seen in years, at the train station, with only the information that Willie will be wearing a white carnation. He goes up to a man bent down to fiddle with his luggage, such that only the hat and a white carnation is visible, whom he assumes to be his son, only to find that the man is black. The second time is when he's having Willie try on new hats at the haberdasher's. '''Every other hat''' that Willie tries on is a variation of the similar-looking boater (larger, and typically straw), which his father continues to veto. One hat that gets vetoed harder than the rest by his father is a miniature derby, placed rakishly on Willie's head a la CharlieChaplin. When the trademark porkpie hat ''does'' appear, Buster sees it in the mirror and quickly ditches it, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_DiaL8ETDw as seen here]].

* RedOniBlueOni: Blue to CharlieChaplin. Or his character.