Description
This portrait of Buster Keaton (1895—1966) by Drew Friedman depicts the legendary actor/comedian/director in his familar porkpie hat during the 1950s. At this stage, long past his silent-film prime and an unfortunate Hollywood has-been, the “Great Stone Face” had a modest career resurgence on TV, including a silent-film parody on a memorable episode of The Twilight Zone. His final film (also silent), The Railrodder, in which he traveled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, was filmed in 1965.
In the decades after the demise of the silent-film era, Keaton was critically underestimated and, in the shadow of Charlie Chaplin, largely forgotten. But historians began to reassess his work in the final decade of his life, and he has since been acclaimed one of the great comedic geniuses of the silent film era.
Keaton’s life has been exhaustively documented. If you admire him, you don’t need us to explain Buster’s genius. If you don’t know much about him, Drew recommends the recent first-rate biography, Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life, by James Curtis.