Actor and filmmaker Buster Keaton (1895-1966) was one of the greatest comic figures of the silent film era. Born Joseph Frank Keaton, VI to vaudevillian parents, he was on stage and part of the physical comedy act by the time he was 4 years old.
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle got Keaton started in pictures and before long Keaton had his own studio, from which he acted, directed and even edited scores of films. He became famous for his slapstick comedy and his breathtaking stunts during the silent era. The advent of the "talkies," however, brought a new breed to Hollywood who concentrated on verbal jokes and dialogue and who had little use for Keaton's brand of physical comedy.
In 1958, Columbia University's Oral History Research Office conducted several lengthy interviews with Keaton about his life and career. The interviews, which can be listened to or read here, provide a rare glimpse of a vanished era from one of the masters of slapstick. In doing so, they help give perspective and a sense of history to the entertainment we see today.
