A collection of 18th and 19th century hats

A hat is a head covering. It can be worn for protection against the elements, for ceremonial or religious reasons, for safety, or as a fashion accessory.^[1] In the past, hats were an indicator of social status.^[2] In the military, they may denote nationality, branch of service, rank and/or regiment.^[3]

History[link]

One of the first pictorial depictions of a hat appears in a Thebes tomb painting which shows a man wearing a coolie-style straw hat. Other early hats were the Pileus, a simple skull cap; the Phrygian cap, worn by freed slaves in Greece and Rome; and the Greek petasos, the first known hat with a brim. Women wore veils, kerchiefs, hoods, caps and wimples. St. Clement^{[disambiguation needed ]}, the patron saint of felt hatmakers, is said to have discovered wool felt when he filled his sandals with flax fibers to protect his feet.^[4] Structured hats for women similar to those of male courtiers began to be worn in the late 16th century.^[5] The term ‘milliner’ comes from the Italian city of Milan, where the best quality hats were made in the 18th century. Millinery was traditionally a woman’s occupation, with the milliner not only creating hats and bonnets but also choosing lace, trimmings and accessories to complete an outfit.^[6]

In the first half of the 19th century, women wore bonnets that gradually became larger, decorated with ribbons, flowers, feathers and gauze trims. By the end of the century, many other styles were introduced, among them hats with wide brims and flat crowns, the flower pot and the toque. By the middle of the 1920s, when women began to cut their hair short, they chose hats that hugged the head like a helmet.^[5]

Since the early 21st century, flamboyant hats have made a comeback, with a new wave of competitive young milliners designing creations that include turban caps, trompe-l'oeil-effect felt hats and tall headpieces made of human hair. Some new hat collections have been described as "wearable sculpture." Many pop stars, among them Lady Gaga, have commissioned hats as publicity stunts.^[7]

• 

  Ancient Greek statue of a lady with blue and gilt garment, fan and sun hat, from Tanagra, 325-300 BC

• 

  A woman with a hat. Ancient Greek Attic red-figure pelike, 440–430 BC, from Nola, Italy

• 

  Herakles with a hat. Ancient Greek Attic black-figure olpe, 550–530 BC

• 

  Hermes with a petasos hat. Ancient Greek Attic red-figure krater, ca. 380–370 BC

Famous hatmakers[link]

Paris millinery shop, 1822

One of the most famous London hatters is James Lock & Co of St James's Street.^[8] Another was Sharp & Davis of 6 Fish Street Hill.^[9] Stetson is a well-known American hat company.^[10] In the late 20th century museums credited London-based David Shilling with reinventing hats worldwide. Notable Belgian hat designers are Elvis Pompilio and Fabienne Delvigne, whose hats are worn by European royals.^[11] Philip Treacy OBE is an award-winning Irish milliner whose hats have been commissioned by top designers^[12] and worn at royal weddings.^[13]

Hat collections[link]

The Philippi Collection is a collection of religious headgear assembled by a German entrepreneur, Dieter Philippi, located in Kirkel.^[14] The collection features over 500 hats,^[15] and is currently the world’s largest collection of clerical, ecclesiastical and religious head coverings.^[16]

Hat styles[link]

Image	Name	Description
	Ascot cap	A hard men's cap, similar to the flat cap, but distinguished by its hardness and rounded shape.
	Akubra	Australian felt hat with a wide brim.
	Ayam	A Korean traditional winter cap mostly worn by women in the Joseon period from 1392 – 1910.
	Balaclava	A form of headgear covering the whole head, exposing only the face or upper part of it, and sometimes only the eyes. Also known as a ski mask.
	Balmoral bonnet	Traditional Scottish bonnet or cap worn with Scottish Highland dress.
	Barretina	A traditional style, in red it is now used as a symbol of Catalan identity. It is worn with the top flopping down.
	Baseball cap	A type of soft light cotton cap with a rounded crown and a stiff bill projecting in front.
	Beanie	A brimless cap with or without a small visor once popular among school boys. Sometimes includes a propeller. In New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the term "beanie" may also be applied to a knit cap known as a tuque, see below.
	Bearskin	The tall, furry, full dress uniform hat of the Brigade of Guards designed to protect the footguards against sword-cuts, commonly seen at Buckingham Palace.
	Beaver hat	Hats made of felted beaver fur.
	Beret	Soft round cap, usually of wool felt, with a bulging flat crown and a tight fitted headband with no brim, worn by both men and women and traditionally associated with France. Also used in the military.
	Bicorne	Broad brimmed felt hat with the brim folded up and pinned front and back to create a long horned shape, also known as a cocked hat. Worn by European military officers in the 1790s.
	Biretta	A square cap with three or four ridges or peaks worn by Roman Catholic clergy and some Anglican and Lutheran clergy.
	Boater	Flat-brimmed and flat-topped straw hat, formerly worn by seamen, and now mostly at summer regattas or garden parties, often with a ribbon in club or college colors.
	Boonie hat	A soft cotton wide-brim hat commonly used by militaries. Similar to a bucket hat.
	Boss of the plains	A lightweight all-weather hat with a high rounded crown and a wide flat brim, designed by John B. Stetson for the demands of the American west.
	Bowler / Derby	A hard felt hat with a rounded crown created in 1850 by Lock's of St James's, the hatters to Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, for his servants. Sometimes known as a derby hat.
	Bucket hat	A soft cotton hat with a wide, downwards-sloping brim.
	Busby	A small fur military hat.
	Campaign hat	A broad-brimmed felt or straw hat, with a high crown, pinched symmetrically at the four corners (the "Montana crease").
	Capirote	A pointed hat of conical form worn in religious processions in Spain by the Nazarenos (see Holy Week in Seville).
	Capotain	A hat worn from the 1590s through the 1640s in England and Northwestern Europe. It is also commonly called a Pilgrim hat.
	Casquette	A small-peaked cap often worn by cyclists.
	Caubeen	An Irish beret.[17]
	Chilote cap	A woven cap typical of Chiloé Archipelago made of coarse raw wool, usually with a pom-pom at the top.
	Chullo	Peruvian or Bolivian hat with ear-flaps made from vicuña, alpaca, llama or sheep's wool.[18]
	Chupalla	Straw hat made in Chile.
	Cloche hat	Popular bell-shaped ladies hat of the 1920s.
	Cricket cap	A type of soft cap that is a traditional form of headwear for players of the game of cricket.
	Cordobés	Flat-brimmed and flat-topped traditional hat originating from Córdoba, Spain, associated with Flamenco and popularized by characters such as the fictional Zorro.
	Conical Asian hat	Conical straw hat associated with East and Southeast Asia.
	Coonskin cap	Hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon that became associated with American and Canadian frontiersmen of the 18th and 19th centuries.
	Custodian helmet	Police helmet worn by British constables while on foot patrol.
	Deerstalker	Warm close-fitting tweed cap designed for hunting in the wet and windy Scottish climate, with brims in front and behind, and ear flaps which can be tied together either over the crown or under the chin; closely associated with Sherlock Holmes.
	Dunce cap	A hat that was used to punish and humiliate students in school during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is shaped like a cone and often has a big capital 'D' inscribed on the front.
	Fascinator	A small hat commonly made with feathers, flowers and/or beads.[7] It attaches to the hair by a comb, headband or clip.
	Fedora	A soft felt hat with a medium brim and lengthwise crease in the crown.
	Fez	Red felt hat in the shape of a truncated cone.
	Flat cap	A soft, round wool or tweed men's cap with a small bill in front.
	Gat	A traditional Korean hat worn by men.
	Gatsby	A soft brimmed hat popular in New York after the turn of the century made from eight quarter panels. Also known as a newsboy cap.
	Garrison or Forage cap	A foldable cloth cap with straight sides and a creased or hollow crown.
	Gaung Paung	Headwrap worn by the Bamar, Mon people, Rakhine and Shan peoples.
	Ghutrah	Three piece ensemble consisting of a Thagiyah skull cap, Gutrah scarf, and Ogal black band. Gutrahs are plain white or checkered, denoting ethnic or national identities.[citation needed].
	Glengarry	A traditional Scottish boat-shaped hat without a peak made of thick-milled woollen material with a toorie on top, a rosette cockade on the left, and (usually) ribbons hanging down behind. It is normally worn as part of Scottish military or civilian Highland dress.
100px	Green eyeshade	A common wear for those playing poker.
	Hard hat	A rounded rigid helmet with a small brim predominantly used in workplace environments, such as construction sites, to protect the head from injury by falling objects, debris and bad weather.
	Hardee hat	Also known as the 1858 Dress Hat. Regulation hat for Union soldiers during the American Civil War.
	Homburg	A semi-formal hat with a medium brim and crown with a crease and no dents.
	Icelandic tail-cap	Part of the national costume of Iceland.
	Jaapi	A traditional hat of Assam, India. There both plain and decorative japies are Available.
100px	Karakul (Qaraqul)	A hat made from the fur of the Qaraqul breed of sheep, typically worn by men in Central and South Asia and popular among Soviet leaders.
	Kepi	A French military hat with a flat, circular top and visor.
	Kippah or Yarmulke	A small close-fitting skullcap worn by religious Jews.
	Kolpik	Brown fur hat worn by Hassidic Jews.
	Kofia	Brimless cylindrical cap with a flat crown, worn by men in East Africa.
	Kova tembel	Cloth hat worn by Israeli pioneers and kibbutzniks.
	Kufi	A brimless, short, rounded cap worn by Africans and people throughout the African diaspora.
	Mitre	Distinctive hat worn by bishops in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion.
	Montera	A crocheted hat worn by bullfighters.
	Mortarboard	Flat, square hat with a tassel worn as part of academic dress.
100px	Mother of the Bride Hat	A large yet lightweight lady's hat with a wide-brim worn regularly in pre-victorian era Britain, and now mostly at garden parties and weddings.
	Pakul	Round, rolled wool hat with a flat top, common in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
	Panama	Straw hat made in Ecuador.
	Papakhi	Also known as astrakhan hat in English, a male wool hat worn throughout the Caucasus.
	Party Hat	A conical hat, similar to the Dunce cap, typically worn at birthday parties. It is frequently emblazoned with bright patterns or messages.
	Patrol cap	Also known as a field cap,a scout cap, or in the United States a mosh cap.; a soft cap with a stiff, rounded visor, and flat top, worn by military personnel in the field when a combat helmet is not required.
	Peaked cap	A military style cap with a flat sloping crown, band and peak (also called a visor). It is used by many militaries of the world as well as law enforcement, as well as some people in service professions who wear uniforms.
	Phrygian Cap	A soft conical cap pulled forward. In sculpture, paintings and caricatures it represents freedom and the pursuit of liberty. The popular cartoon characters The Smurfs wear white Phrygian caps.
	Pith Helmet	A lightweight rigid cloth-covered helmet made of cork or pith, with brims front and back. Worn by Europeans in tropical colonies in the 1800s.
	Planter's Hat	A lightweight straw hat, with a wide brim, a round crown and narrow round dent on the outside of the top of the crown. Worn by Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, and Paul Bettany in Master and Commander.
	Porkpie	Felt hat with low flat crown and narrow brim.
	Rastacap	A tall, round, usually crocheted and brightly colored, cap worn by Rastafarians and others with dreadlocks to tuck their locks away.
	Sami hat	Also known as a "Four Winds" hat, traditional men's hat of the Sami people.
	Šajkača	Serbian national hat.
	Salakot	A traditional hat in the Philippines.
	Santa Hat	A floppy pointed red hat trimmed in white fur traditionally associated with Christmas.
	Shako	A tall cylindrical military cap, usually with a visor, badge, and plume.
	Shtreimel	A fur hat worn by married Hassidic men on Shabbat and holidays.
	Slouch	Generic term covering wide-brimmed felt-crowned hats often worn by military leaders.
	Sombrero	A Mexican hat with a conical crown and a very wide, saucer-shaped brim, highly embroidered made of plush felt.
	Songkok	A cap widely worn in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines and southern Thailand, mostly among Muslim males. May be related to the taqiyah.
	Stetson	Also known as a "Cowboy Hat". A High-crowned, wide-brimmed hat, with a sweatband on the inside, and a decorative hat band on the outside. Customized by creasing the crown and rolling the brim.[19]
	Student cap	A cap worn by university students in various European countries.
	Tam o' Shanter	A Scottish wool hat originally worn by men.
	Taqiyah	A round fabric cap worn by Muslim men.
	Top hat	A tall, flat-crowned, cylindrical hat worn by men in the 19th and early 20th centuries, now worn only with morning dress or evening dress.
	Toque	A tall, pleated, brimless, cylindrical hat traditionally worn by chefs.
	Trilby	A soft felt men's hat with a deeply indented crown and a narrow brim often upturned at the back.
	Tricorne	A soft hat with a low crown and broad brim, pinned up on either side of the head and at the back, producing a triangular shape. Worn by Europeans in the 18th century.
	Trucker hat	Similar to a baseball cap, usually with a foam brim and front section and a breathable mesh back section.
	Tubeteika	A round, slightly pointed cap with embroidered or applique patterns worn throughout Central Asia.
100px	Tudor bonnet	A soft round black academic cap, with a tassel hanging from a cord attached to the centre of the top of the hat.
	Tuque	In Canada, a knitted hat, worn in winter, usually made from wool or acrylic. Also known as a ski cap, knit hat, knit cap, sock cap, stocking cap, toboggan, watch cap, or goobalini. In New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the term "beanie" is applied to this cap.
	Turban	A headdress consisting of a scarf-like single piece of cloth wound around either the head itself or an inner hat.
	Tyrolean hat	A felt hat with a corded band and feather ornament, originating from the Alps.
	Ushanka	Russian fur hat with fold down ear flaps.
	Vueltiao	A Colombian hat of woven and sewn black and khaki dried palm braids with indigenous figures.
100px	Umbrella Hat	A hat made from an umbrella that straps to the head. Has been made with mosquito netting.
	Zucchetto	Skullcap worn by clerics.

Hat design[link]

A hat consists of four main parts:^[20]

• Crown - The portion of a hat covering the top of the head
• Peak (British English), visor (American English), or bill, a stiff projection at the front, to shade or shield the eyes from sun and rain
• Brim, an optional projection of stiff material from the bottom of the hat's crown horizontally all around the circumference of the hat
• Puggaree (British) or sweatband or hatband (American), a ribbon or band that runs around the bottom of the torso of the hat. The sweatband may be adjustable with a cord or rope at the top and is on the inside of the hat touching the skin while the hatband and puggaree are around the outside.^[21][22]
  

Hat size[link]

Hat sizes are determined by measuring the circumference of a person's head about 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) above the ears. Inches or centimeters may be used depending on the manufacturer. Felt hats can be stretched for a custom fit. Some hats, like hard hats and baseball caps, are adjustable. Cheaper hats come in "standard sizes", such as small, medium, large, extra large: the mapping of measured size to the various "standard sizes" varies from maker to maker and style to style, as can be seen by studying various catalogues, such as Hammacher-Schlemmer.^[23]

Traditional hat size is worked out by adding the fore and aft and side to side measurements (in inches) then dividing by two. In the UK, an equivalent hat size is an eighth of an inch smaller than in the US.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hat

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hats

• Different Sizing Schemes
• Hats UK has a Hat Bible and other resources
• Witty, whimsical, wacky, wonderful, International Herald Tribune, Suzy Menkes
• Hat History
• When Did Men Stop Wearing Hats?. February 21, 2011 by The DailySkew.

Buster Keaton
Born	Joseph Frank Keaton (1895-10-04)October 4, 1895 Piqua, Kansas, United States
Died	February 1, 1966(1966-02-01) (aged 70) Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States
Cause of death	Lung cancer
Occupation	Actor, director, producer and writer
Years active	1898–1966
Influenced	Jackie Chan, Peter Jackson, Mel Brooks, Donald O'Connor, Stanley Donen, Blake Edwards, Nick Park
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.^[1] 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".^[2]

Buster Keaton (his lifelong stage name) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.^[3] 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."^[2]

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."^[4]

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.^[5]

Early life in vaudeville[link]

Keaton was born Joseph Frank Keaton^[6] 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^[6]—and "Frank" for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of the parents' union. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to "Francis".^[6] 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.^[7]

According to a frequently-repeated story, which may be apocryphal,^[8] 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.^[9]

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."^[10] 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.^[10]

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.^[11]

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,^[10] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Buster Keaton's career swiftly moved from vaudeville to film.^[12]

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.^[13][14]

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!"^[15] 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.^[16]

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."^[17] 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."^[18] Keaton even inspired full academic study.^[19]

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".^[20] 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.^[21]

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.^[22]

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.^[23] The final entry was She's Oil Mine, and Keaton swore he would never again "make another crummy two-reeler."^[23] 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]

Keaton pretending to have his foot stuck in the railroad tracks of a train ride at Knott's Berry Farm in 1956

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.

Keaton as a time traveler in The Twilight Zone episode, "Once Upon a Time", November 1961.

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.^[24]

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.^[25] 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.^[26]

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.^[27]

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.^[28]

Keaton with fellow comedian Joe E. Brown in a 1962 episode of Route 66.

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.^[29]

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.^[30]

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.^[31]

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.^[21]

During the height of his popularity, Keaton spent $300,000 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930 m²) 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.^[32]

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. The singular event that triggered Mae filing for divorce in 1935 was her finding Keaton in flagrante dilecto with the infamous Leah Clampitt Sewell on the 4th of July of that same year in a hotel in Santa Barbara.^[33] When they divorced in 1936, it was again at great financial cost to Keaton.^[34]

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.^[35] 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.^[36] Eleanor Keaton died in 1998, from emphysema and lung cancer, aged 80.

Buster Keaton, Movie Star

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."^[37]

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.^[38]

In 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton.^[39] 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".^[40]

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.^[41]

Pork pie hats[link]

Keaton seated, in costume, wearing his signature pork pie hat, circa 1939.

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.^[42] 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.^[42]

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]

Biography portal

• Camille Keaton

References[link]