Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, director, producer, writer, and stunt performer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Keaton was recognized as the seventh-greatest film director by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth4 October 1895
CityPiqua, KS
CountryUnited States of America
I don't feel qualified to talk about my work,
Not long ago a friend asked me what was the greatest pleasure I got from spending my whole life as an actor. There have been so many that I had to think about that for a moment. Then I said, 'Like everyone else, I like to be with a happy crowd'.
If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window.
What really got my goat at MGM were comedians like The Marx Brothers who never wrote their own jokes.
The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises . . . the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment.
Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles?
Like everyone else, I like to be with a happy crowd.
No man can be a genius in slapshoes and a flat hat.
Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.
Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.
Life is too serious to do farce comedy.
You could write the whole plot on a postcard. We do the rest.
Everybody at Metro was in my gag department, including Irving Thalberg. They'd laugh their heads off at dialogue written by all your new writers. They were joke-happy. They didn't look for action; they were looking for funny things to say.
A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny.