In American film, the most prominent comic actors of the silent era were Charlie Chaplin ( although born in England, his success was principally in the U. S .), Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

Lewis followed the legacy of such comedians as Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but his work was not well received by critics in the United States ( in contrast to France where he proved highly popular.

It was in these early years that Remi developed a love of cinema, particularly favouring Windsor McCay's pioneering animated film Gertie the Dinosaur and the films featuring Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton ; his later work in the comic strip medium would display an obvious influence from these early films in style and content.

However, during his own silent film career, the nearest Keaton had appeared in a " police comedy " was The Goat ( 1921 ) and Cops ( 1922 ).

His last work, in 1935, was as a producer-director for Educational Pictures ; he directed Buster Keaton in The Timid Young Man and Joan Davis in Way Up Thar.

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.

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.

The result was Batman Returns which featured Michael Keaton returning as the Dark Knight, and a new triad of villains: Danny DeVito ( as the Penguin ), Michelle Pfeiffer ( as Catwoman ) and Christopher Walken as Max Shreck, an evil corporate tycoon and original character created for the film ( similar to Superman IIIs Ross Webster ).

Joseph Frank " Buster " Keaton ( October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966 ) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer.

Buster Keaton ( his lifelong stage name ) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Keaton was born Joseph Frank Keaton into a vaudeville family.

He was named " Joseph " to continue a tradition on his father's side — he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton — and " Frank " for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of the parents ' union.

His father was Joseph Hallie " Joe " Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana.

Buster Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Keaton ( née Myra Edith Cutler ), happened to go into labor.

" According to Keaton, in those days, the word " buster " was used to refer to a spill or a fall that had the potential to produce injury.

The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely ; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage.

However, Buster Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones.

" Decades later, Keaton said that he was never hurt by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution.

Keaton claimed he was having so much fun that he would sometimes begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage.

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.

In 2001, Hawn was reunited with former co-stars Warren Beatty ( her co-star in $ and Shampoo ) and Diane Keaton for the comedy Town & Country, a critical and financial fiasco.

Based on Scott McPherson's screenplay adaptation of his own 1991 stage play of the same name, the film revolves around two sisters, played by Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton, who are reunited through tragedy after 17 years of estrangement.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.