Page "Buster Keaton" Paragraph 10

The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville.

It is said that, when one official saw Keaton in full costume and makeup and asked a stagehand how old he was, the stagehand, aware of the situation with the Keatons, then pointed to the boy's mother, saying, " I don't know, ask his wife!

" According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day.

Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of music halls in the United Kingdom, Keaton was a rising star in the theater.

Keaton stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother.

By the time he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act, so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Buster Keaton's career swiftly moved from vaudeville to film.

for the National Film Board of Canada.

Wearing his traditional porkpie hat, he travelled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, performing gags similar to those in films he made 50 years before.

The film is also notable for being Keaton's last silent screen performance.

The Railrodder was made in tandem with a behind-the-scenes documentary about Keaton's life and times, called Buster Keaton Rides Again, also made for the National Film Board.

He played the central role in Samuel Beckett's Film ( 1965 ), directed by Alan Schneider.

Also in 1965, he traveled to Italy to play a role in Due Marines e un Generale, co-starring alongside with the famous Italian comedian duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.