When the film opened in June 1989, it was backed by the biggest marketing and merchandising campaign in film history at the time, and became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, grossing well over US $ 250 million in the US alone and $ 400 million worldwide ( numbers not adjusted for inflation ) and earning critical acclaim for the performances of both Keaton and Nicholson, as well as the film's production aspects, which won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

According to a frequently-repeated story, which may be apocryphal, Keaton acquired the nickname " Buster " at about eighteen months of age.

After attempts at reconciliation, Natalie divorced Keaton in 1932, taking his entire fortune and refusing to allow any contact between Keaton and his sons, whose last name she had changed to Talmadge.

Keaton was not at home at the time, and his wife and children escaped unharmed, staying at the home of Tom Mix until the following morning.

Keaton was at one point briefly institutionalized ; however, according to the TCM documentary So Funny it Hurt, Keaton escaped a straitjacket with tricks learned during his vaudeville days.

When they divorced in 1936, it was again at great financial cost to Keaton.

In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers of Thames Television that Keaton was up out of bed and moving around, and even played cards with friends who came to visit at their house the day before he died.

Keaton observed that during his silent period, such a hat cost him around two dollars ; at the time of his interview, he said, they cost almost $ 13.

* In the Buster Keaton film The Playhouse, a zouave drill routine is one of the acts at the theatre.

The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as the Monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the Monster stomped into home plate.

From this one might think that Keaton jumped at the chance but this is not the case.

) Often when crew was stumped over a technical problem with the camera, he came through with suggestions, inevitably prefacing his comments by explaining that he had solved such problems many times at the Keaton Studios back in 1927 .”

* Buster Keaton in FILM ( 1965 ) at Internet Archive

Keaton began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Coppola noted that he first noticed Keaton in Lovers and Other Strangers, and cast her because of her reputation for eccentricity that he wanted her to bring to the role ( Keaton claims that at the time she was commonly referred to as " the kooky actress " of the film industry ).

Keaton reprised her role four years later in the sequel, as a woman who becomes pregnant in middle age at the same time as her daughter.

In the film, scripted and directed by Thomas Bezucha, Keaton played a breast cancer survivor and matriarch of a big New England family, who reunites at the parents ' home for their annual Christmas holidays.

Keaton received her second Satellite Award nomination for her portrayal, on which Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented, " Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory.

* White Noise ( film ), a 2005 film starring Michael Keaton

In 2005, she starred in the financially successful supernatural horror film White Noise with Michael Keaton.

Company principals and producers, Stephen Hegyes and Shawn Williamson, have produced over 60 productions in the last 12 years and over 20 productions since the launch of the company in 2001, including White Noise, starring Michael Keaton, which has grossed more than $ 100 million since opening in January 2005.

In 1955, Keaton was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.

The " roll dance " the tramp character performs in the film is considered one of the most memorable scenes in film history, although Roscoe Arbuckle did something similar in the 1917 movie The Rough House which co-starred Buster Keaton.

Keaton wrote her first memoir, entitled Then Again, for Random House in November 2011.

* The Rough House, a 1917 film starring Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton

In 1940, an RKO movie adaptation starred Granville Owen ( later known as Jeff York ) as Li ' l Abner, with Buster Keaton taking the role of Lonesome Polecat, and featuring a title song with lyrics by Milton Berle.

She attempted two unsuccessful series in a row: Mary, which featured David Letterman, Michael Keaton, Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn in the supporting cast and lasted three episodes, which was re-tooled as The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, a backstage show within a show, with Mary portraying a TV star putting on a variety show.

For the title role, Burton chose to cast Michael Keaton as Batman following their previous collaboration in Beetlejuice, despite Keaton's average physique, inexperience with action films, and reputation as a comic actor.

Many critics believe that Gromit's silence makes him the perfect straight man with a pantomime expressiveness that drew favourable comparisons to Buster Keaton.

Joe Keaton owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the " Mohawk Indian Medicine Company ", which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side.

Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including during a 1964 interview with the CBC's Telescope.

At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons.

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!

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

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.

She co-starred with Keaton in Our Hospitality.

Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later when his older son turned 18.

The failure of his marriage, along with the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, led Keaton into a period of alcoholism.

The singular event that triggered Mae filing for divorce in 1935 was her finding Keaton in flagrante delicto with the infamous Leah Clampitt Sewell on the 4th of July of that same year in a hotel in Santa Barbara.

Despite being diagnosed with cancer in January 1966, he was never told that he was terminally ill or that he had cancer ; Keaton thought that he was recovering from bronchitis.

Comedian Richard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton's widow Eleanor.

* Keaton, Buster ( with Charles Samuels ), My Wonderful World of Slapstick ( 1960 ) Doubleday, ( 1982 ) Da Capo Press ISBN 0-306-80178-7

* Robinson, David, Buster Keaton ( 1969 ) Indiana University Press, in association with British Film Institute

* Keaton, Buster, Buster Keaton: Interviews ( Conversations with Filmmakers Series ) ( 2007 ) University Press of Mississippi

Hawn returned to the screen again in 1996 as the aging, alcoholic actress Elise Elliot in the financially and critically successful The First Wives Club, opposite Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, with whom she covered the Lesley Gore hit " You Don't Own Me " for the film's soundtrack.