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My Wonderful World of Slapstick

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My Wonderful World of Slapstick THE THIS BOOK IS THE PROPERTY OF Georgia State Bo»r* of Education AN. PR,CLAun\;v eSupt of School* 150576 DECATUR -DeKALB LIBRARY REGIONAI SERVICE ROCKDALE COUNTY NEWTON COUNTY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Media History Digital Library http://archive.org/details/mywonderfulworldOObust MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK MY WO/VDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK BUSTER KEATON WITH CHARLES SAMUELS 150576 DOVBLEW& COMPANY, lNC.,<k*D£H C(TYt HlW Yo*K DECATUR - DeKALB LIBRARY REGiOMA! $&KZ ROCKDALE COUNTY NEWTON COUNTY Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-5934 Copyright © i960 by Buster Keaton and Charles Samuels All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition J 6>o For Eleanor 1. THE THREE KEATONS 9 2. I BECOME A SOCIAL ISSUE 29 3. THE KEATONS INVADE ENGLAND 49 4. BACK HOME AGAIN IN GOD'S COUNTRY 65 5. ONE WAY TO GET INTO THE MOVIES 85 6. WHEN THE WORLD WAS OURS 107 7. BOFFOS BY MAN AND BEAST 123 8. THE DAY THE LAUGHTER STOPPED 145 9. MARRIAGE AND PROSPERITY SNEAK UP ON ME 163 10. MY $300,000 HOME AND SOME OTHER SEMI-TRIUMPHS 179 11. THE WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE 199 12. THE TALKIE REVOLUTION 217 13. THE CHAPTER I HATE TO WRITE 233 14. A PRATFALL CAN BE A BEAUTIFUL THING 249 15. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 267 THE THREE KeAtOnS Down through the years my face has been called a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, "a tragic mask." On the other hand that kindly critic, the late James Agee, described my face as ranking "almost with Lin- coln's as an early American archetype, it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful." I cant imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this, though I sure was pleased. People may talk it up or talk it down, but my face has been a valuable trade-mark for me during my sixty years in show busi- ness. Sixty years is right, for it was in 1899, when I was not quite four years old, that I officially joined my parents' vaudeville act. And if you think sixty years is a long time in your life you should be in show business. Last Wednesday is a long time ago to most actors. The young ones talk of the great vaudeville days at the MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK Palace as though these came at the dawn of theatrical history. When I started, vaudeville was just beginning to replace the minstrel show as the country's favorite entertainment. The Palace was not even built. If I say I "officially joined" my folks' act in 1899 it is because my father always insisted that I'd been trying to get into the family act unofficially—meaning unasked, unwanted, and unbilled—prac- tically from the day I was born. Having no baby sitter, my mother parked me in the till of a wardrobe trunk while she worked on the stage with Pop. Accord- ing to him, the moment I could crawl I headed for the footlights. "And when Buster learned to walk," he always proudly explained to all who were interested and many who weren't, "there was no holding him. He would jump up and down in the wings, make plenty of noise, and get in everyone's way. It seemed easier to let him come out with us on the stage where we could keep an eye on him. "At first I told him not to move. He was to lean against the side wall and stay there. But one day I got the idea of dressing him up like myself as a stage Irishman with a fright wig, slugger whiskers, fancy vest, and over-size pants. Soon he was imitating everything I did, and getting laughs. "But he got nothing at all at the first Monday show we played at Bill Dockstader's Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware. Dock- stader told me to leave him out of the act. But he had a special matinee for kiddies on Wednesday and suggested that children, knowing no better, might be amused by Buster's antics." On Wednesday Bill noticed that their parents also seemed amused and suggested I go on at all performances. Pop said he didn't want to use me in the night show as I had to get my rest like any small child. Dockstader then offered to pay the act ten dollars a week extra. My father agreed to try it. I had no trouble sleeping through the morning and played night and day with the act from then on. Even in my early days our turn established a reputation for being the roughest in vaudeville. This was the result of a series of interesting experiments Pop made with me. He began these by carrying me out on the stage and dropping me on the floor. Next 12 THE THREE KEATONS he started wiping up the floor with me. When I gave no sign of minding this he began throwing me through the scenery, out into the wings, and dropping me down on the bass drum in the orches- tra pit The people out front were amazed because I did not cry. There was nothing mysterious about this. I did not cry because I wasn't hurt. All little boys like to be roughhoused by their fathers. They are also natural tumblers and acrobats. Because I was also a born hambone, I ignored any bumps or bruises I may have got at first on hearing audiences gasp, laugh, and applaud. There is one more thing: little kids when they fall haven't very far to go. I suppose a psychologist would call it a case of self-hypnosis. Before I was much bigger than a gumdrop I was being featured in our act, The Three Keatons, as "The Human Mop." One of the first things I noticed was that whenever I smiled or let the audi- ence suspect how much I was enjoying myself they didn't seem to laugh as much as usual. I guess people just never do expect any human mop, dishrag, beanbag, or football to be pleased by what is being done to him. At any rate it was on purpose that I started looking miserable, humiliated, hounded, and haunted, bedeviled, bewildered, and at my wit's end. Some other comedians can get away with laughing at their own gags. Not me. The public just will not stand for it. And that is all right with me. All of my life I have been happiest when the folks watching me said to each other, "Look at the poor dope, wilya?" Because of the way I looked on the stage and screen the public naturally assumed that I felt hopeless and unloved in my personal life. Nothing could be farther from the fact As long back as I can remember I have considered myself a fabulously lucky man. From the beginning I was surrounded by interesting people who loved fun and knew how to create it. I've had few dull moments and not too many sad and defeated ones. In saying this I am by no means overlooking the rough and rocky years I've lived through. But I was not brought up thinking life would be easy. I always expected to work hard for my money and to get nothing I did not earn. And the bad years, it seems MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK to me, were so few that only a dyed-in-the-wool grouch who en- joys feeling sorry for himself would complain of them. My parents were my first bit of great luck. I cannot recall one argument that they had about money or anything else during the years I was growing up. Yet both were rugged individualists. I was their partner, however, as well as their child. And from the time I was ten both they and the other actors on the bill treated me not as a little boy, but as an adult and a full-fledged performer. Isn't that what most children want: to be accepted, to be allowed to share in their parents' concerns and problems? It is difficult, of course, for a man of my age to say with certainty what he felt and thought and wanted as a little ldd. But it seems to me that I enjoyed both the freedom and privileges of childhood, certainly most of them, and also the thrill of being treated as full grown years before other boys and girls. Neither Mom nor Pop was demonstrative, but not many children expected that of their parents in those days. You were supposed to please them. When I disobeyed orders I got a good clout over the backside. Nobody expected me to like it, or cared whether I did or not. The clout told me in the one way a normal and mis- chievous boy understands to behave myself. When I failed to get the point I got another clout. After I was seven, Pop would punish me for misbehaving while we were working on the stage. He knew I was too proud of being able to take it to yell or cry. I don t think my father had an ounce of cruelty in him. He just didn't think it was good for a boy as full of beans as I was to get away with too much.
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