BUSTER KEATON

A life of the Great Stone Face.

Film historian and biographer Curtis draws on abundant archival sources as well as interviews, memoirs, and previous biographies to create a comprehensive, warmly sympathetic life of iconic entertainer Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton (1895-1966). Born into a family of traveling performers, Keaton made his debut as a toddler, featured along with his parents as one of The Three Keatons. “Broadly acrobatic,” he quickly discovered the power of a deadpan expression to elicit laughter, and his porkpie hat, rumpled clothes, and sad eyes became as well-known and beloved as Charlie Chaplin’s bedraggled Little Tramp. In 1917, he ventured out on his own; by 1920, he was hailed by a studio head as “the greatest comedy sensation since the heyday of Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle in two-reelers.” After serving as Arbuckle’s assistant director, Keaton moved into directing and producing, setting up his own studio to make shorts and feature films. In lively detail, Curtis—biographer of Spencer Tracy, Preston Sturges, and W.C. Fields, among others—recounts the highs and lows of Keaton’s prolific career, tracing “the development of gags, the logic of gags, the mechanics of gags” as he acted on stage and in silent movies, talkies, and TV, including being cast in a film by Samuel Beckett and performing with Chaplin in Limelight. Outside of work, Keaton experienced “personal chaos,” including his marriage to fellow actor Natalie Talmadge, which lasted 10 years and ended in acrimonious divorce, incited, in part, by his heavy drinking. His second marriage, to a woman who nursed him through a regimen of drying out, lasted only a few years, as did his abstention from alcohol. In 1935, he ended up in a “psychopathic ward.” Finally, in 1940, he married happily. In this authoritative portrait, Curtis portrays his subject as “a gentle soul, so quiet and unassuming,” sometimes startled by acclaim and happiest when he was working. A chronology of films and TV appearances is appended.

Meticulous research informs a brisk biography of an entertainment icon.