Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

Background[link]

Turan was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his B.S. in history from Swarthmore College in 1967 and M.S. from Columbia University in 1968. From 1969-1978 he was a sports writer and feature writer for the ''Washington Post''. He also served as film critic for a number of publications including ''The Progressive,'' ''New West/California Magazine'', ''Gentlemen's Quarterly,'' and ''E!Entertainment.''

Career[link]

He has been a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' since 1991 and the Director for the ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prizes, Los Angeles Times since 1993. He is the founding film critic for Arts Alive on KUSC-FM and www.kusc.org. He also provides regular reviews for ''Morning Edition'' on National Public Radio

Kenneth Turan is featured in the documentary ''For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism'' discussing his famous public quarrel with James Cameron, and recalling how Cameron e-mailed the LA Times’s editors calling for Turan’s firing after Turan wrote a negative review of ''Titanic''.

Publications[link]

''Now In Theaters Everywhere.'' (2006)

''Never Coming To A Theater Near You.'' (2004)

''Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made.''

''Call Me ismale: The Autobiography of ismale.'' (1987)

''I'd Rather Be Wright: Memoirs of an itinerant Tackle.'' (1974)

''Sinema: American Pornographic Films and the People Who Make Them.'' (1974)

''The Future is Now: George Allen, Pro Football's Most Controversial Coach.'' with William Gildea (1972)

Awards[link]

2006: ''Special Citation.'' National Society of Film Critics Awards.

References[link]

External links[link]

NPR biography

Turan's page at USC

Category:1946 births Category:American film critics Category:Living people Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Swarthmore College alumni Category:University of Southern California faculty Category:NPR personalities Category:Los Angeles Times people

fa:کنت توران it:Kenneth Turan no:Kenneth Turan fi:Kenneth Turan

name	Buster Keaton
birth name	Joseph Frank Keaton
birth date	October 04, 1895
birth place	Piqua, Kansas, United States
death date	February 01, 1966
death place	Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States
death cause	Lung cancer
occupation	Actor, director, producer and writer
years active	1898–1966
spouse	Natalie Talmadge (m. 1921–1932) Mae Scriven (m. 1933–1936) Eleanor Norris (m. 1940-1966; his death) }}

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

Buster Keaton (his lifelong stage name) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by ''Entertainment Weekly''. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies."

Orson Welles stated that Keaton's ''The General'' is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."

A 2002 worldwide poll by ''Sight & Sound'' ranked Keaton's ''The General'' as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: ''Our Hospitality'', ''Sherlock, Jr.'', and ''The Navigator''.

Early life in vaudeville[link]

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. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to "Francis". His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana. 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. 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 a frequently-repeated story, which may be apocryphal, Keaton acquired the nickname "Buster" at about eighteen months of age. Keaton told interviewer Fletcher Markle that Harry Houdini happened to be present one day when the young Keaton took a tumble down a long flight of stairs without injury. After the infant sat up and shook off his experience, Houdini remarked, "That was a real buster!" 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. After this, it was Keaton's father who began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. 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''. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware. The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Myra played the saxophone to one side, while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. The young Keaton would goad his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton would respond by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest. However, Buster Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones. He was eventually billed as "The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged," with the overall act being advertised as "'The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage." 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. In 1914, Keaton told the ''Detroit News'':

The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment.

Keaton claimed he was having so much fun that he would sometimes begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. Noticing that this drew fewer laughs from the audience, he adopted his famous deadpan expression whenever he was working.

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 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.

Although he did not see active combat, he served in World War I, during which time he suffered an ear infection that permanently impaired his hearing.

Silent film era[link]

In February 1917, Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Buster also had reservations about the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room, dismantled and reassembled it. With this rough understanding of the mechanics of the moving pictures, he returned the next day, camera in hand, asking for work. He was hired as a co-star and gag man, making his first appearance in ''The Butcher Boy''. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends.

In 1920, ''The Saphead'' was released, in which Keaton had his first starring role in a full-length feature. It was based on a successful play, ''The New Henrietta'', which had already been filmed once, under the title "The Lamb" with Douglas Fairbanks playing the lead. Fairbanks recommended Keaton to take up the role for the remake five years later, since the film was to have a comic slant.

After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Comedies. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including ''One Week'' (1920), ''The Playhouse'' (1921), ''Cops'' (1922), and ''The Electric House'' (1922). Keaton then moved to full-length features, his first starring role being in ''The Saphead'' (1920).

Keaton's writers included Clyde Bruckman and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. Comedy director Leo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies, said, "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal ''him!''" The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. During the railroad water-tank scene in ''Sherlock Jr.'', Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water fell on him from a water tower, but he did not realize it until years afterward. A scene from ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'' required Keaton to run into the shot and stand still on a particular spot. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, thanks to a single open window which passed directly over him. The stunt required precision, because the prop house weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of space around Keaton's body. The sequence became one of the iconic images of Keaton's career.

The film critic David Thomson later described Keaton's style of comedy: "Buster plainly is a man inclined towards a belief in nothing but mathematics and absurdity ... like a number that has always been searching for the right equation. Look at his face — as beautiful but as inhuman as a butterfly — and you see that utter failure to identify sentiment." Gilberto Perez describes "Keaton's genius as an actor to keep a face so nearly deadpan and yet render it, by subtle inflections, so vividly expressive of inner life. His large deep eyes are the most eloquent feature; with merely a stare he can convey a wide range of emotions, from longing to mistrust, from puzzlement to sorrow." Keaton even inspired full academic study.

Aside from ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'' (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films include ''Our Hospitality'' (1923), ''The Navigator'' (1924), ''Sherlock Jr.'' (1924), ''Seven Chances'' (1925), ''The Cameraman'' (1928), and ''The General'' (1927). ''The General'', set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains, including an epic locomotive chase. Employing picturesque locations, the film's storyline reenacted an actual wartime incident. Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton's proudest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton's judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a "few laughs". The fact that the heroes of the story were from the Confederate side may have also contributed to the film's unpopularity.

It was an expensive misfire, and Keaton was never entrusted with total control over his films again. His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Keaton endured this treatment for two more feature films, and then exchanged his independent setup for employment at Hollywood's biggest studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Keaton's loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films (although he was interested in making the transition) and mounting personal problems, and his career in the early sound era was hurt as a result.

Sound era and television[link]

Keaton signed with MGM in 1928, a business decision that he would later call the worst of his life. He realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would severely limit his creative input. For instance, the studio refused his request to make his early project, ''Spite Marriage'', as a sound film and after the studio converted, he was obliged to adhere to dialogue-laden scripts. However, MGM did allow Keaton to direct his last originally developed/written silent film ''The Cameraman'', 1928, which was his first project under contract with MGM.

Keaton was forced to use a stunt double during some of the more dangerous scenes, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. He also stopped directing, but continued to perform and made some of his most financially successful films for the studio. MGM tried teaming the laconic Keaton with the rambunctious Jimmy Durante in a series of films, ''The Passionate Plumber'', ''Speak Easily'', and ''What! No Beer?'' The latter would be Keaton's last starring feature. The films proved popular. (Thirty years later, both Keaton and Durante had cameo roles in ''It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World''.)

In the first Keaton pictures with sound, he and his fellow actors would shoot each scene three times: one in English, one in Spanish, and one in either French or German. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at time and shoot immediately after. This is discussed in the TCM documentary ''Buster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt'', with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times.

Keaton was so depleted during the production of 1933's ''What! No Beer?'' that MGM fired him after the filming was complete, despite the film being a resounding hit. In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, ''Le Roi des Champs-Élysées''. During this period, he made one other film in Europe, ''The Invader'' (released in America as ''An Old Spanish Custom'' in 1936).

Educational Pictures[link]

Upon Keaton's return to Hollywood, he made a screen comeback in a series of 16 two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures. Most of these are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself. The high point in the Educational series is ''Grand Slam Opera'', featuring Buster in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. When the series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, including the Marx Brothers films ''At the Circus'' (1939) and ''Go West'' (1940), and providing material for Red Skelton. He also helped and advised Lucille Ball in her comedic work in films and television.

Columbia Pictures[link]

In 1939, Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in ten two-reel comedies, running for two years. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstick made most of these films resemble White's Three Stooges comedies. Keaton's personal favorite was the series' debut entry, ''Pest from the West'', a shorter, tighter remake of Keaton's little-viewed 1935 feature ''The Invader''; it was directed not by White but by Del Lord, a veteran director for Mack Sennett. Moviegoers and exhibitors welcomed Keaton's Columbia comedies, proving that the comedian had not lost his appeal. However, taken as a whole, Keaton's Columbia shorts rank as the worst comedies he made, an assessment he concurred with in his autobiography. The final entry was ''She's Oil Mine'', and Keaton swore he would never again "make another crummy two-reeler." These Columbia films are his final starring series for any film studio.

1940s and feature films[link]

Keaton's personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films. Throughout the 1940s, Keaton played character roles in both "A" and "B" features. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger "prestige" pictures. He had cameos in such films as ''In the Good Old Summertime'' (1949), ''Sunset Boulevard'' (1950), and ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (1956).

Keaton also had a small bit part as Jimmy, appearing near the end of the film ''It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963). Jimmy assisted Spencer Tracy's character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, in storing his police car in a shoreline garage. Keaton was given more screen time in ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'' (1966). The appearance is all the more touching since it was Keaton's last public appearance.

Keaton also appeared in a comedy routine about two inept stage musicians in Charlie Chaplin's ''Limelight'' (1952), recalling the vaudeville of ''The Playhouse''. With the exception of ''Seeing Stars'', a minor publicity film produced in 1922, ''Limelight'' was the only time in which the two would ever appear together on film.

In 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, ''The Ed Wynn Show'', which was televised live on the West Coast. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951.

1950s and television[link]

In 1950, Keaton had a successful television series, ''The Buster Keaton Show'', which was broadcast live on a local Los Angeles station. An attempt to recreate the first series on film as ''Life with Buster Keaton'' (1951), which allowed the program to be broadcast nationwide, was less well-received. He also appeared in the early television series ''Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town''. A theatrical feature film, ''The Misadventures of Buster Keaton'', was fashioned from the series. Keaton said he canceled the filmed series himself because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week. Keaton also appeared on Ed Wynn's variety show. At the age of 55, he successfully recreated one of the stunts of his youth, in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it, and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. ''I've Got a Secret'' host Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you'. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it—it ''hurt''—but you had to care enough not to care."

Unlike his contemporary Harold Lloyd, who kept his films from being televised (and therefore became lesser known to today's audiences), Keaton's periodic television appearances helped to revive interest in his silent films in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, Keaton played his first television dramatic role in "The Awakening", an episode of the syndicated anthology series ''Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents''. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's ''The Martha Raye Show''.

On April 3, 1957, Keaton was surprised by Ralph Edwards for the weekly NBC program ''This Is Your Life''. The half hour program, which also promoted the release of the biographical film ''The Buster Keaton Story'' with Donald O'Connor, summarized Keaton's life and career up to that point.

In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star as a hospital janitor who provides gifts to sick children in a special Christmas episode of ''The Donna Reed Show'' on ABC. The program was titled "A Very Merry Christmas". He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode "Now You See It, Now You Don't". The 1958 episode has been included in the DVD release of Donna Reed's television programs. Actor Paul Peterson, a regular on "The Donna Reed Show," recalls in the book "The Fall of Buster Keaton" (2010, Scarecrow Press) that Keaton "put together an incredible physical skit. His skills were amazing. I never saw anything like it before or since."

In August 1960, Keaton accepted the role of mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of ''Once Upon A Mattress'', a successful Broadway musical. Eleanor Keaton was cast in the chorus, and during rehearsals, she fielded questions directed at her husband, creating difficulties in communication. After a few days, Keaton warmed up to the rest of the cast with his "utterly delicious sense of humor", according to Fritzi Burr, who played opposite him as his wife Queen Aggravaine. When the tour landed in Los Angeles, Keaton invited the entire cast and crew to a spaghetti party at his Woodland Hills home, and entertained them by singing vaudeville songs.

In 1960, Keaton returned to MGM for the final time, playing a lion tamer in a 1960 adaptation of Mark Twain's ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''. Much of the film was shot on location on the Sacramento River, which doubled for the Mississippi River setting of Twain's original book.

In 1961, he starred in ''The Twilight Zone'' episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. Keaton played time traveler Mulligan, who traveled from 1890 to 1960, then back, by means of a special helmet.

Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials, including a popular series of silent ads for Simon Pure Beer made in 1962 by Jim Mohr in Buffalo, NY in which he revisited some of the gags from his silent film days. In 1963, Keaton appeared in the episode "Think Mink" of ABC's ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' sitcom, starring Fess Parker.

In 1964, Keaton appeared with Joan Blondell and Joe E. Brown in the final episode of ABC's circus drama, ''The Greatest Show on Earth'', starring Jack Palance. That same year, he appeared on Lucille Ball's CBS television show, ''The Lucy Show'', in an episode ("A Day in the Park") filmed in color but initially televised in black and white; this featured him sitting on a park bench, reading a newspaper, which he gradually unfolded into a huge, single sheet, a gag first seen in his 1921 short The High Sign. Harvey Korman played a policeman in the scene. At the age of 70, Keaton suggested that, for his appearance in the 1965 film ''Sergeant Deadhead'', he run past the end of a firehose into a six-foot-high flip and crash. When director Norman Taurog balked, expressing concerns for Keaton's health, Keaton said, "I won't hurt myself, Norm, I've done it for years!" Keaton also starred in three other films for American International Pictures (''Beach Blanket Bingo'', ''Pajama Party'', and ''How to Stuff a Wild Bikini'').

In 1965, Keaton starred in a short film called ''The Railrodder'' 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.

Keaton's last film appearance was in ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'' (1966) which was filmed in Spain in late 1965. He amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts, although Thames Television said his increasingly ill health did force the use of a stunt double for some scenes.

Marriages[link]

In 1921, Keaton married Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of his boss, Joseph Schenck, and sister of actresses Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge. She co-starred with Keaton in ''Our Hospitality''. The couple had two sons, James (1922–2007) and Robert (1924–2009), but after the birth of Robert, the relationship began to suffer.

According to Keaton's autobiography, Natalie turned him out of their bedroom and hired detectives to follow him. Her extravagance was another factor in the breakdown of the marriage. During the 1920s, according to his autobiography, he dated actress Kathleen Key.

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 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.

During the height of his popularity, Keaton spent $300,000 to build a home in Beverly Hills, which was later owned by James Mason and Cary Grant. Keaton's "Italian Villa" can be seen in Keaton's film ''Parlor, Bedroom and Bath''. Keaton later said, "I took a lot of pratfalls to build that dump." Mason found numerous cans of previously "lost" Keaton films in the house in the 1950s; the films were quickly transferred by Raymond Rohauer to safety film before the original cellulose nitrate prints further deteriorated. Among the discovered films is Keaton's long-lost classic ''The Boat''.

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. In 1933, he married his nurse, Mae Scriven, during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing (Keaton himself later called that period an "alcoholic blackout"). Scriven herself would later claim that she didn't know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. When they divorced in 1936, it was again at great financial cost to Keaton.

In 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris (1918–1998), who was 23 years his junior. She has been credited with saving his life by stopping his heavy drinking, and helped to salvage his career. The marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, they appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them on TV revivals.

Death[link]

Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, California. 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. Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. 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. Eleanor Keaton died in 1998, from emphysema and lung cancer, aged 80.

Influence and legacy[link]

Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6321 Hollywood Boulevard (for television).

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

Jacques Tati is described as "taking a page from Buster Keaton's playbook."

A 1957 film biography, ''The Buster Keaton Story'', starred Donald O'Connor as Keaton. The screenplay, by Sidney Sheldon (who also directed the film), was vaguely based on his life, but contained many factual errors and merged his three wives into one character. Most of the story centered on his drinking problem. The 1987 documentary, ''Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow'', which won two Emmy Awards and was directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, is considered a much more accurate telling of Keaton’s story.

In 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton. Hirschfeld said that modern film stars were more difficult to depict, that silent film comedians such as Laurel and Hardy and Keaton "looked like their caricatures".

Keaton's physical comedy is cited by Jackie Chan in his autobiography documentary ''Jackie Chan: My Story'' as being the primary source of inspiration for his own brand of self-deprecating physical comedy.

Comedian Richard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton's widow Eleanor. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said Lewis' eyes looked like Keaton's.

Pork pie hats[link]

Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. In 1964, he told an interviewer that in making "this particular pork pie", he "started with a good Stetson and cut it down", stiffening the brim with sugar water. The hats were often destroyed during Keaton's wild film antics; some were given away as gifts and some were snatched by souvenir hunters. Keaton said he was lucky if he used only six hats in making a film. Keaton estimated that he and his wife Eleanor made thousands of the hats during his career. 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.

Keaton in music[link]

In 1987 Italian singer-songwriters Claudio Lolli and Francesco Guccini wrote a song, ''Keaton'', about his work in Italy on the film ''Due Marines e un Generale''

Filmography[link]

See also[link]

Camille Keaton

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Agee, James, "Comedy's Greatest Era" from ''Life'' (September 5, 1949), reprinted in ''Agee on Film'' (1958) McDowell, Obolensky, (2000) Modern Library

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

Blesh, Rudi, ''Keaton'' (1966) The Macmillan Company ISBN 0-02-511570-7

Lahue, Kalton C., ''World of Laughter: The Motion Picture Comedy Short, 1910-1930'' (1966) University of Oklahoma Press

Lebel, Jean-Patrick, ''Buster Keaton'' (1967) A.S. Barnes

Brownlow, Kevin, "Buster Keaton" from ''The Parade’s Gone By'' (1968) Alfred A. Knopf, (1976) University of California Press

McCaffrey, Donald W., ''4 Great Comedians: Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, Langdon'' (1968) A.S. Barnes

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

Robinson, David, ''The Great Funnies: A History of Film Comedy'' (1969) E.P. Dutton

Durgnat, Raymond, "Self-Help with a Smile" from ''The Crazy Mirror: Hollywood Comedy and the American Image'' (1970) Dell

Maltin, Leonard, ''Selected Short Subjects'' (first published as ''The Great Movie Shorts'', 1972) Crown Books, (revised 1983) Da Capo Press

Gilliatt, Penelope, "Buster Keaton" from ''Unholy Fools: Wits, Comics, Disturbers of the Peace'' (1973) Viking

Mast, Gerald, ''The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies'' (1973, 2nd ed. 1979) University of Chicago Press

Kerr, Walter, ''The Silent Clowns'' (1975) Alfred A. Knopf, (1990) Da Capo Press ISBN 0-394-46907-0

Anobile, Richard J. (ed.), ''The Best of Buster: Classic Comedy Scenes Direct from the Films of Buster Keaton'' (1976) Crown Books

Yallop, David, ''The Day the Laughter Stopped: The True Story of Fatty Arbuckle'' (1976) St. Martin's Press

Byron, Stuart and Weis, Elizabeth (eds.), ''The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy'' (1977) Grossman/Viking

Moews, Daniel, ''Keaton: The Silent Features Close Up'' (1977) University of California Press

Everson, William K., ''American Silent Film'' (1978) Oxford University Press

Maltin, Leonard, ''The Great Movie Comedians'' (1978) Crown Books

Dardis, Tom, ''Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down'' (1979) Scribners, (2004) Limelight Editions

Benayoun, Robert, ''The Look of Buster Keaton'' (1983) St. Martin's Press

Staveacre, Tony, ''Slapstick!: The Illustrated Story'' (1987) Angus & Robertson Publishers

Edmonds, Andy, ''Frame-Up!: The Shocking Scandal That Destroyed Hollywood's Biggest Comedy Star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle'' (1992) Avon Books

Kline, Jim, ''The Complete Films of Buster Keaton'' (1993) Carol Pub. Group

Meade, Marion, ''Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase'' (1995) HarperCollins

Rapf, Joanna E. and Green, Gary L., ''Buster Keaton: A Bio-Bibliography'' (1995) Greenwood Press

Oldham, Gabriella, ''Keaton's Silent Shorts: Beyond the Laughter'' (1996) Southern Illinois University Press

Horton, Andrew, ''Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.'' (1997) Cambridge University Press

Bengtson, John, ''Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton'' (1999) Santa Monica Press

Knopf, Robert, ''The Theater and Cinema of Buster Keaton'' (1999) Princeton University Press ISBN 0-691-00442-0

Keaton, Eleanor, ''Buster Keaton Remembered'' (2001) Harry N. Abrams ISBN 0-8109-4227-5

Mitchell, Glenn, ''A – Z of Silent Film Comedy'' (2003) B.T. Batsford Ltd.

McPherson, Edward, ''Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat'' (2005) Newmarket Press ISBN 1-55704-665-4

Oderman, Stuart, ''Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle: A Biography of the Silent Film Comedian'' (2005) McFarland & Co.

Neibaur, James L., ''Arbuckle and Keaton: Their 14 Film Collaborations'' (2006) McFarland & Co.

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

Brighton, Catherine, ''Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton'' (2008) Roaring Brook Press (An illustrated children's book about Keaton's career)

Smith, Imogen Sara, ''Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy'' (2008) Gambit Publishing ISBN 978-0-9675917-4-2

Carroll, Noel, ''Comedy Incarnate: Buster Keaton, Physical Humor, and Bodily Coping'' (2009) Wiley-Blackwell

Neibaur, James L., ''The Fall of Buster Keaton: His Films for MGM, Educational Pictures, and Columbia'' (2010) Scarecrow Press

External links[link]

The International Buster Keaton Society

Buster Keaton Museum

Buster Keaton and the Muskegon Connection

Buster Keaton in Five Easy Clips

Buster Keaton Photo Galleries (includes rare images of BK smiling and laughing)

Buster Keaton as a child performer (Univ. of Washington/Sayre collection)

Category:1895 births Category:1966 deaths Category:Buster Keaton Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Actors from Kansas Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American silent film actors Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Mimes Category:People from Beverly Hills, California Category:People from Woodson County, Kansas Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Slapstick comedians Category:Short film directors Category:Silent film comedians Category:Silent film directors Category:Ukulele players Category:Vaudeville performers

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name	Crazy Horse
tribe	Oglala Lakota
birth date	ca. 1840
death date	September 5, 1877
death place	Fort Robinson
native name	Tȟašúŋke Witkó; birth name, Cha-O-Ha ("In the Wilderness" or "Among the Trees")
nicknames	Curly, Light Hair
known for	Leader at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
spouse	Black Buffalo Woman, Black Shawl, Nellie Larrabee (Laravie)
children	They Are Afraid of Her
parents	Crazy Horse (the elder), also known as ''Waglula'' (Worm), Rattling Blanket Woman (born 1814).
relations	Brother, Little Hawk. Cousin, Touch the Clouds. Grandparents, Black Buffalo and White Cow (also called Iron Cane). Uncles, Spotted Tail, Lone Horn. Aunts, Good Looking Woman, Looks At It (later called They Are Afraid of Her), Father's wives, Iron Between Horns, Kills Enemy, and Red Leggins
footnotes	}}

Crazy Horse (Lakota: '''' (in Standard Lakota Orthography), literally "His-Horse-Is-Crazy" or "His-Horse-Is-Spirited"; ca. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.

After surrendering to U.S. troops under General Crook in 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a military guard while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members and has been honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Early life[link]

Sources differ on the precise year of Crazy Horse's birth, but they agree he was born between 1840 and 1845. According to a close friend, he and Crazy Horse "were both born in the same year at the same season of the year", which census records and other interviews place at about 1845. Encouraging Bear, an Oglala medicine man and spiritual adviser to the Oglala war leader, reported that Crazy Horse was born "in the year in which the band to which he belonged, the Oglala, stole One Hundred Horses, and in the fall of the year", a reference to the annual Lakota calendar or winter count. Among the Oglala winter counts, the stealing of 100 horses is noted by Cloud Shield, and possibly by American Horse and Red Horse owner, as equivalent to the year 1840-41. Oral history accounts from relatives on the Cheyenne River Reservation place his birth in the spring of 1840. On the evening of his son's death, the elder Crazy Horse told Lieutenant H. R. Lemly that his son "would soon have been thirty-seven, having been born on the South Cheyenne river in the fall of 1840".

Crazy Horse was named at birth ''Cha-O-Ha'' ("In the Wilderness" or "Among the Trees", meaning he was one with nature.) His mother's nickname for him was "Curly" or "Light Hair"; his light curly hair resembled that of his mother.

Family[link]

Crazy Horse was born to parents from two tribes of the Lakota division of the Sioux, his father was an Oglala and his mother was a Miniconjou. His father, born in 1810, was also named Crazy Horse. One account said that after the son had reached maturity and shown his strength, his father gave him his name and took a new one, ''Waglula'' (Worm). (Another version of how the son Crazy Horse acquired his name was that he took it after having a vision.) His mother was Rattling Blanket Woman (born 1814). Crazy Horse's cousin (son of Lone Horn) was Touch the Clouds. He saved his life at least once and was with Crazy Horse when he died.

Rattling Blanket Woman was the daughter of Black Buffalo and White Cow (also known as Iron Cane). Her older siblings were Lone Horn (born 1790–1795, died 1875) and Good Looking Woman (born 1810). Her younger sister was named Looks At It (born 1815), later given the name They Are Afraid of Her. The historian George Hyde wrote that Rattling Blanket Woman was Miniconjou and the sister of Spotted Tail, who became a Brulé head chief.

In the summer of 1844, "Waglula" (Worm) went on a buffalo hunt. He came across a Minneconjou Lakota village under attack by Crow warriors. He led his small party of warriors to the village and rescued it. Corn, the head man of the village, had lost his wife in the raid. In gratitude he gave ''Waglula'' his two eldest daughters as wives: Iron Between Horns (age 18) and Kills Enemy (age 17). Corn's youngest daughter, Red Leggins, who was 15 at the time, requested to go with her sisters; all became Waglula's wives.

Genealogy[link]

According to Frederick Hoxie's ''Encyclopedia of North American Indians''(1996), Crazy Horse was the third in his male line to bear the name of Crazy Horse, which in Oglala is ''Tasunke Witko''. Tasunke Witko III (1840–1877) was the son of Rattling Blanket Woman and Tasunke Witko II. He was married three times: first to Black Buffalo Woman, second to Black Shawl, and third to Nellie Larrabee (Laravie). Only his second wife Black Shawl bore him any children: a daughter named They Are Afraid of Her, who died at age three.

Visions[link]

Crazy Horse lived in the Lakota camp with his younger brother, High Horse (son of Iron Between Horns and ''Waglula'') and a cousin Little Hawk. (Little Hawk was the nephew of his maternal step-grandfather, Corn.) The camp was entered by Lt. Grattan and 28 other US troopers, who intended to arrest a Minniconjou man for having stolen a cow. A conflict known as the Grattan massacre ensued and the Sioux killed the US Army forces.

After having witnessed the death of the Lakota leader Conquering Bear, Crazy Horse began to get trance visions. His father ''Waglula'' took him to what today is Sylvan Lake, South Dakota, where they both sat to do a ''hemblecha'' (vision quest). A red-tailed hawk led them to their respective spots in the hills; as the trees are tall in the Black Hills, they could not always see where they were going. Crazy Horse sat between two humps at the top of a hill north and to the east of the lake. Waglula sat south of Harney Peak but north of his son.

Crazy Horse's vision first took him to the South, where in Lakota spirituality one goes upon death. He was brought back and was taken to the West in the direction of the ''wakiyans'' (thunder beings). He was given a medicine bundle to protect him for life. One of his animal protectors would be the white owl which, according to Lakota spirituality, would give extended life. He was also shown his "face paint" for battle, to consist of a yellow lightning bolt down the left side of his face, and white powder. He would wet this and put marks over his vulnerable areas; when dried, the marks looked like hailstones. His face paint was similar to that of his father, who used a red lightning strike down the right side of his face and three red hailstones on his forehead. Crazy Horse put no makeup on his forehead and did not wear a war bonnet. He was given a sacred song that is still sung by the Oglala people today. Lastly, he was told he would be a protector of his people.

Black Elk, a contemporary and cousin of Crazy Horse, told about the vision in ''Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux,'' from talks with John G. Neihardt.

Crazy Horse received a black stone from a medicine man named Horn Chips to protect his horse, a black-and-white "paint horse" which he named ''Inyan'' (rock or stone). He placed the stone behind the horse's ear, so that the medicine from his vision quest and Horn Chips would combine; he and his horse would be one in battle.

Title of "Shirt Wearer"[link]

Through the late 1850s and early 1860s, Crazy Horse's reputation as a warrior grew, as did his fame among the Lakota. The Lakota told accounts of him in their oral histories. His first kill was a Shoshone raider who had killed a Lakota woman washing buffalo meat along the Powder River. Crazy Horse fought in numerous battles between the Lakota and their traditional enemies, the Crow, Shoshone, Pawnee, Blackfeet, and Arikara, among Plains tribes.

In 1864, after the Third Colorado Cavalry decimated Northern Cheyenne in the Sand Creek Massacre, Lakota Oglala and Minneconjou bands allied with them against the US military. Crazy Horse was present at the Battle of Red Buttes and the subsequent Platte River Bridge Station Battle in July 1865. Because of his fighting ability, in 1865 Crazy Horse was named a ''Ogle Tanka Un'' (Shirt Wearer, or war leader) by the tribe.

Battle of the Hundred in the Hand (Fetterman Massacre)[link]

On December 21, 1866, Crazy Horse and six other warriors, both Lakota and Cheyenne, decoyed Capt. William Fetterman's 53 infantrymen and 27 cavalry troopers under Lt. Grummond into an ambush. They had been sent out from Fort Phil Kearny to follow up on an earlier attack on a wood train. Crazy Horse lured Fetterman's infantry up a hill. Grummond's cavalry followed the other six decoys along Peno Head Ridge and down toward Peno Creek, where several Cheyenne women taunted the soldiers. Meanwhile, Cheyenne leader Little Wolf and his warriors, who had been hiding on the opposite side of Peno Head Ridge, blocked the return route to the fort. The Lakota warriors swept over the hill and attacked the infantry. Additional Cheyenne and Lakota hiding in the buckbrush along Peno Creek effectively surrounded the soldiers. Seeing that they were surrounded, Grummond headed his cavalry back to Fetterman.

The combined warrior forces of nearly 1,000 killed all the US soldiers, in what became known as the Fetterman Massacre. It was the Army's worst defeat on the Great Plains up to that time. The Lakota and Cheyenne call it the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand.

Wagon Box Fight[link]

On August 2, 1867, Crazy Horse participated in the Wagon Box Fight, also near Fort Phil Kearny. Lakota forces numbering between 1000 and 2000 attacked a wood-cutting crew near the fort. Most of the soldiers fled to a circle of wagon boxes without wheels, using them for cover as they fired at the Lakota. The Lakota took substantial losses, as the soldiers were firing new breech-loading rifles. These could fire ten times a minute compared to the old muzzle-loading rate of three times a minute. The Lakota charged after the soldiers fired, expecting the delay of their older muskets before being able to fire again. The soldiers suffered only five killed and two wounded, while the Lakota suffered between 50 and 120 casualties. Many Lakota were buried in the hills surrounding Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming.

Controversy over his first wife[link]

In the fall of 1867, Crazy Horse invited Black Buffalo Woman to accompany him on a buffalo hunt in the Slim Buttes area of present-day northwestern South Dakota. She was the wife of No Water, who had a reputation for drinking too much. It was Lakota custom to allow a woman to divorce her husband at any time. She did so by moving in with relatives or with another man, or by placing the husband's belongings outside their lodge. Although some compensation might be required to smooth over hurt feelings, the rejected husband was expected to accept his wife's decision. No Water was away from camp when Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman left for the buffalo hunt.

No Water tracked down Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman in the Slim Buttes area. When he found them in a tipi, he called Crazy Horse's name from outside. When Crazy Horse answered, No Water stuck a pistol into the tipi and aimed for Crazy Horse. Touch the Clouds, Crazy Horse's first cousin and son of Lone Horn, was sitting in the tipi nearest the entry. He knocked the pistol upward as No Water fired, deflecting the bullet to Crazy Horse's upper jaw. No Water left, with Crazy Horse's relatives in hot pursuit. No Water ran his horse until it died and continued on foot until he reached the safety of his own village.

Several elders convinced Crazy Horse and No Water that no more blood should be shed. As compensation for the shooting, No Water gave Crazy Horse three horses. Because Crazy Horse was with a married man's wife, he was stripped of his title as Shirt Wearer (leader).

Second and third wives[link]

In addition to his first wife Black Buffalo Woman, Crazy Horse married Black Shawl Woman, a member of the Oglala Lakota and relative of Spotted Tail. The elders sent her to heal Crazy Horse after his altercation with No Water. Crazy Horse and Black Shawl Woman were married in 1871. Black Shawl gave birth to Crazy Horse's only child, a daughter named They Are Afraid Of Her, who died in 1873. Black Shawl outlived Crazy Horse. She died in 1927 during the influenza outbreaks of the 1920s.

While married to Black Shawl Woman, Crazy Horse took Helena "Nellie" Laravie as his third wife. Nellie, also referred to as Chi-Chi and Brown Eyes Woman, was the daughter of a French trader and a Cheyenne woman. William Garnett's first-hand account of Crazy Horse's surrender alludes to Nellie as the "half blood woman" who caused Crazy Horse to fall into a "domestic trap which insensibly led him by gradual steps to his destruction".

Great Sioux War of 1876–77[link]

On June 17, 1876, Crazy Horse led a combined group of approximately 1,500 Lakota and Cheyenne in a surprise attack against brevetted Brigadier General George Crook's force of 1,000 cavalry and infantry, and allied 300 Crow and Shoshone warriors in the Battle of the Rosebud. The battle, although not substantial in terms of human losses, delayed Crook's joining with the 7th Cavalry under George A. Custer. It contributed to Custer’s subsequent defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

A week later at 3:00 p.m. on June 25, 1876, Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked a large encampment of Cheyenne and Lakota bands along the Little Bighorn River, marking the beginning of his last battle. Crazy Horse's actions during the battle are unknown.

Hunkpapa warriors led by Chief Gall led the main body of the attack. Crazy Horse's tactical and leadership role in the battle remains ambiguous. While some historians think that Crazy Horse led a flanking assault, ensuring the death of Custer and his men, the only proven fact is that Crazy Horse was a major participant in the battle. His personal courage was attested to by several eye-witness Indian accounts. Water Man, one of only five Arapaho warriors who fought, said that Crazy Horse "was the bravest man I ever saw. He rode closest to the soldiers, yelling to his warriors. All the soldiers were shooting at him, but he was never hit." Sioux battle participant, Little Soldier, said, "The greatest fighter in the whole battle was Crazy Horse."

On September 10, 1876, Captain Anson Mills and two battalions of the Third Cavalry captured a Miniconjou village of 36 lodges in the Battle of Slim Buttes, South Dakota. Crazy Horse and his followers attempted to rescue the camp and its headman, (Old Man) American Horse. They were unsuccessful. The soldiers killed American Horse and much of his family after they holed up in a cave for several hours.

On January 8, 1877, Crazy Horse's warriors fought their last major battle at Wolf Mountain, against the US Cavalry in the Montana Territory. His people struggled through the winter, weakened by hunger and the long cold. Crazy Horse decided to surrender with his band to protect them, and went to Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

Surrender and death[link]

Crazy Horse and other northern Oglala leaders arrived at the Red Cloud Agency, located near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on May 5, 1877. Together with He Dog, Little Big Man, Iron Crow and others, they met in a solemn ceremony with First Lieutenant William P. Clark as the first step in their formal surrender.

For the next four months, Crazy Horse resided in his village near the Red Cloud Agency. The attention that Crazy Horse received from the Army drew the jealousy of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, two Lakota who had long before come to the agencies and adopted the white ways. Rumors of Crazy Horse's desire to slip away and return to the old ways of life started to spread at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies. In August 1877, officers at Camp Robinson received word that the Nez Perce of Chief Joseph had broken out of their reservation in Idaho and were fleeing north through Montana toward Canada. When asked by Lieutenant Clark to join the Army against the Nez Perce, Crazy Horse and the Miniconjou leader Touch the Clouds objected, saying that they had promised to remain at peace when they surrendered. According to one version of events, Crazy Horse finally agreed, saying that he would fight "till all the Nez Perce were killed". But his words were apparently misinterpreted by a half-Tahitian scout, Frank Grouard (not be confused with Fred Gerard, another U.S. Cavalry scout during the summer of 1876), who reported that Crazy Horse had said that he would "go north and fight until not a white man is left". When he was challenged over his interpretation, Grouard left the council. Another interpreter, William Garnett, was brought in but quickly noted the growing tension.

With the growing trouble at the Red Cloud Agency, General George Crook was ordered to stop at Fort Robinson. A council of the Oglala leadership was called, then canceled, when Crook was incorrectly informed that Crazy Horse had said the previous evening that he intended to kill the general during the proceedings. Crook ordered Crazy Horse's arrest and then departed, leaving the military action to the post commander at Fort Robinson, Lieutenant Colonel Luther P. Bradley. Additional troops were brought in from Fort Laramie. On the morning of September 4, 1877, two columns moved against Crazy Horse's village, only to find that it had scattered during the night. Crazy Horse fled to the nearby Spotted Tail Agency with his sick wife (who had become ill with tuberculosis). After meeting with military officials at the adjacent military post of Camp Sheridan, Crazy Horse agreed to return to Fort Robinson with Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee, the Indian agent at Spotted Tail.

On the morning of September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse and Lieutenant Lee, accompanied by Touch the Clouds as well as a number of Indian scouts, departed for Fort Robinson. Arriving that evening outside the adjutant's office, Lieutenant Lee was informed that he was to turn Crazy Horse over to the Officer of the Day. Lee protested and hurried to Bradley's quarters to debate the issue, but without success. Bradley had received orders that Crazy Horse was to be arrested and taken under the cover of darkness to Division Headquarters. Lee turned the Oglala war chief over to Captain James Kennington, in charge of the post guard, who accompanied Crazy Horse to the post guardhouse. Once inside, Crazy Horse struggled with the guard and Little Big Man and attempted to escape. Just outside the door, Crazy Horse was stabbed with a bayonet by one of the members of the guard. He was taken to the adjutant's office, where he was tended by the assistant post surgeon at the post, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, and died late that night.

The following morning, Crazy Horse's body was turned over to his elderly parents; they took it to Camp Sheridan and placed it on a burial scaffold. The following month, when the Spotted Tail Agency was moved to the Missouri River, Crazy Horse's parents moved the remains to an undisclosed location. There are at least four possible locations as noted on a state highway memorial near Wounded Knee, South Dakota. His final resting place remains unknown.

Controversy over his death[link]

Dr. McGillycuddy, who treated Crazy Horse after he was stabbed, wrote that Crazy Horse "died about midnight". According to military records, he died before midnight, making it September 5, 1877.

John Gregory Bourke's memoir of his service in the Indian wars, ''On the Border with Crook'', describes a different account of Crazy Horse's death. He based his account on an interview with Crazy Horse's relative and rival, Little Big Man, who was present at Crazy Horse's arrest and wounding. The interview took place over a year after Crazy Horse's death. Little Big Man said that, as Crazy Horse was being escorted to the guardhouse, he suddenly pulled two knives from under his blanket and held one in each hand. One knife was reportedly fashioned from an army bayonet. Little Big Man, standing behind him, seized Crazy Horse by both elbows, pulling his arms up behind him. As Crazy Horse struggled, Little Big Man lost his grip on one elbow, and Crazy Horse drove his own knife deep into his own lower back. The guard stabbed Crazy Horse with his bayonet in the back. The chief fell and surrendered to the guards.

When Bourke asked about the popular account of the guard bayoneting Crazy Horse first, Little Big Man said that the guard had thrust with his bayonet, but that Crazy Horse's struggles resulted in the guard's thrust missing entirely and lodging his bayonet into the frame of the guardhouse door. Little Big Man said that in the hours immediately following Crazy Horse's wounding, the camp commander had suggested the story of the guard's being responsible to hide Little Big Man's role in the death of Crazy Horse and avoid any inter-clan reprisals.

Little Big Man's account is questionable; it is the only one of 17 eyewitness sources from Lakota, US Army, and "mixed-blood" individuals, that fails to attribute Crazy Horse's death to a soldier at the guardhouse. The author Thomas Powers cites various witnesses who said Crazy Horse was fatally wounded when his back was pierced by a guard's bayonet.

The identity of the soldier responsible for the bayoneting of Crazy Horse is also debatable. Only one eyewitness account actually identifies the soldier as Private William Gentles. Historian Walter M. Camp circulated copies of this account to individuals who had been present who questioned the identity of the soldier and provided two additional names. To this day, the identification remains questionable.

Photograph controversy[link]

Most sources question whether Crazy Horse was ever photographed. Dr. McGillycuddy doubted any photograph of the war leader had been taken. In 1908, Walter Camp wrote to the agent for the Pine Ridge Reservation inquiring about a portrait. "I have never seen a photo of Crazy Horse," Agent Brennan replied, "nor am I able to find any one among our Sioux here who remembers having seen a picture of him. Crazy Horse had left the hostiles but a short time before he was killed and it's more than likely he never had a picture taken of himself."

In 1956, a small tintype portrait purportedly of Crazy Horse was published by J. W. Vaughn in his book ''With Crook at the Rosebud''. The photograph had belonged to the family of the scout, Baptiste "Little Bat" Garnier. Two decades later, the portrait was published with further details about how the photograph was produced at Fort Robinson, though the editor of the book "remained unconvinced of the authenticity of the photograph".

Recently, the original tintype was on exhibit at the Custer Battlefield Museum in Garryowen, Montana. The museum says that it is the only authentic portrait of Crazy Horse. Historians continue to dispute the identification.

Experts argue that the tintype was taken a decade or two after 1877. The evidence includes the individual's attire (such as the length of the hair pipe breastplate and the ascot tie). In addition, no other photograph with the same painted backdrop has been found. Several photographers passed through Fort Robinson and the Red Cloud Agency in 1877—including James H. Hamilton, Charles Howard, David Rodocker and possibly Daniel S. Mitchell—but none used the backdrop that appears in the tintype. After the death of Crazy Horse, Private Charles Howard produced at least two images of the famed war leader's alleged scaffold grave, located near Camp Sheridan, Nebraska.

The image of Crazy Horse at the top of this page was made in 1934 by a forensic artist from a description given by Crazy Horse's sister. This drawing belongs to Crazy Horse's family, and has been publicly shown only once, on the PBS program ''History Detectives''.

Crazy Horse Memorial and memorial highways[link]

Crazy Horse is commemorated by the incomplete Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota near the town of Berne—a monument carved into a mountain, in the tradition of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial (on which Korczak Ziółkowski had worked with Gutzon Borglum). The sculpture was begun by Ziółkowski in 1948. When completed, it will be wide and high.

Crazy Horse has also been honored by having two highways named the Crazy Horse Memorial Highway. In South Dakota, the SDDOT designated US-16/US-385 between Custer and Hill City, which passes by the Crazy Horse Memorial. In November 2010, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman approved designating US-20 from Hay Springs to Fort Robinson in honor of Crazy Horse, capping a year-long effort by citizens of Chadron. The designation may extend east another 100 miles through Cherry County to Valentine.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

Ambrose, Stephen E. ''Crazy Horse and Custer: The epic clash of two great warriors at the Little Bighorn''. 1975.

Bray, Kingsley M. ''Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life''. 2006. ISBN 0-8061-3785-1

Clark, Robert. ''The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Three Eyewitness Views by the Indian, Chief He Dog the Indian White, William Garnett the White Doctor, Valentine McGillycuddy''. 1988. ISBN 0-8032-6330-9

Marshall, Joseph M. III. ''The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History''. 2004.

Guttmacher, Peter and David W. Baird. Ed. ''Crazy Horse: Sioux War Chief''. New York Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1994. 0-120. ISBN 0-7910-1712-5

McMurtry, Larry. ''Crazy Horse (Penguin Lives)''. Puffin Books. 1999. ISBN 0-670-88234-8

Pinn, Lionel Little Eagle. ''Greengrass Pipe Dancers''. 2000. ISBN 0-87961-250-9

Sandoz, Mari. ''Crazy Horse, the Strange Man of the Oglalas, a biography''. 1942. ISBN 0-8032-9211-2

"Debating Crazy Horse: Is this the Famous Oglala". ''Whispering Wind magazine'', Vol 34 #3, 2004. A discussion on the improbability of the Garryowen photo being that of Crazy Horse (the same photo shown here). The clothing, the studio setting all date the photo 1890–1910.

''The Authorized Biography of Crazy Horse and His Family Part One: Creation, Spirituality, and the Family Tree''. DVD. William Matson and Mark Frethem, producers. Documentary based on over 100 hours of footage shot of family oral history detailed interviews and all Crazy Horse sites. Family had final approval on end product. Reelcontact.com, 2006.

''The Authorized Biography of Crazy Horse and His Family Part Two: Defending the Homeland Prior to the 1868 Treaty'''. DVD William Matson and Mark Frethem, Producers. Reel Contact Productions, 2007.

External links[link]

Final Days and Death of Crazy Horse

PBS Biography of Crazy Horse

Newly Discovered Alleged Photo of Crazy Horse

A timeline of Crazy Horse's life

Trimble: What did Crazy Horse look like?, Indian Country Today

William Bordeaux's Crazy Horse sketch at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library

Complete Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger

work=Oglala (Lakota) Sioux Indian Chief|author=Kuzriel Meir|date=April 16, 1999|accessdate=Aug 18, 2011}}

Category:1840s births Category:1877 deaths Category:1877 crimes Category:Lakota leaders Category:Murdered Native American people Category:Native American leaders Category:Native American people of the Indian Wars Category:People of the Great Sioux War of 1876–77 Category:People from South Dakota Category:Red Cloud's War Category:Deaths with bayonets Category:People of the American Old West

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