Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74213 in Books
• Published on: 1982-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

Synopsis
Buster Keaton describes his childhood as a member of the family vaudeville act and his experiences as a comic actor during the early days of motion pictures.

Customer Reviews

Don't confuse memoirs with mythology
This is a very entertaining memoir and I think gives a good picture of Buster's personality, although his memory of details of his career isn't always reliable; and since he was quite a raconteur and told his favorite stories many times, I have no doubt that many of them took on new details over the years and shouldn't be taken literally. That doesn't make him a liar; he's an entertainer and a showman. He was also a remarkably modest, unassuming and generous person. He clearly didn't like to badmouth other people or dwell on self-pity, and he doesn't mention a lot of things for that reason.

However, part of the reason the memoir doesn't cover his "clinical depression" and his "abuse by his father" as some have complained, is because those didn't exist in the first place. Some extremely misleading biographies have been written about Keaton by people imposing their own morbid fantasies on this poor guy. Meade is notable for inventing nonsense, but she's not the only one. Except for a period of some five years in his life when he was understandably depressed after having lost the creative independence he had always been used to having, and becoming instead a trained dog at MGM, and despite several bouts of alcoholism which he eventually got control over, he was not a bitter or depressive man. Many people who met him in later life confirm this.

Furthermore, he had a very close relationship with his family through his entire life. He supported his mother and siblings even when he was broke himself, and lived with them during lean times. Also, he was in fact quite straightforward in his memoirs and in interviews about the rough time he did have with his father around the time that he reached his 20's, when his father's drinking led to a breakup of the Keaton act and the Keaton family, and it's also very clear that both before that and later on they were on good terms. Keaton's father acted in many of Buster's movies, sometimes with self-referential jokes that show how much they cracked each other up.

The fact that their vaudeville act was rough does not mean that Keaton was a victim of child abuse. If he had been, both his attitude and his career would have been entirely different. It's quite clear that Keaton enjoyed the rough stuff and gave as good as he got. He's also quite clear in his memoir that when the rough stuff did become abusive or dangerous because of his father taking to drink, Keaton didn't put up with it; he ended the act. And he didn't hold a grudge.

Keaton's a bigger and better person than any of his small-minded, dirt-obsessed biographers. We're still waiting for a really good, thorough, and objective biography. One of the best introductions to Keaton, though, if you can find it, is the three-part series "A Hard Act to Follow" done for Thames television by Kevin Brownlow. As far as books go, the beautiful picture book and memoir "Buster Keaton Remembered" by Jeffrey Vance and Eleanor Keaton, his wife of 26 years, is a fair-minded assessment although brief. Eleanor was an admirable and unsentimental lady. The other book that captures the man best (though it probably promulgates a few myths), is Rudi Blesh's "Keaton." He knew Buster personally and understood him. It's not that hard to find - read it instead of Marion Meade's spin. She should save that for her own autobiography.

A Must for Buster Fans!!
This book is written like Keaton is speaking, and provides a glimpse as to what the "the Great Stone Face" may have been like in conversation. The book is great fun, but don't look for great insights to the motivations and themes behind the films...Buster is about as vague on this as his famous face is immobile. Buster leaves out details on his hardest times (alcoholism, his second wife), so it comes as no surprise that this is more a testament to his survival in show business and resurrection in the late fifties. Be ready for the realization that the greatest silent film director of all time has no ego, doesn't take himself seriously, and is a simple guy with great intuition. If you are a Buster fan, you will love this, but for specifics on personal matters, seek out Meade's "Cut to the Chase".

Puzzle book.
I'm not really sure what to make of this book. Judging from his films, I'd assumed that his writings would be whimsical + profound; instead he comes across as being very ordinary, sometimes bordering on boring. The book is mostly a list of facts + anecdotes in roughly chronological order, with his own feelings + opinions few + far between.
It seemed strange that he went into great detail about how much he was spending + earning, which wasn't entertaining, relevant, or endearing, yet he says very little about his personal life - in fact I don't think he even mentions the names of his first two wives, + his sons only ever come as a pair. Perhaps he thought the reader would only be interested in his career, or there was nothing very remarkable about his home + family, or a lot of people asked not to be mentioned, but it does make me wonder a) why he wanted to write the book at all, + b) whether he had something to hide.
It annoyed me that he never openly admitted or denied the adultery accusation, unless we take the strange story of the nameless woman who scratched his eyes out after apparently dropping in from space to tell him that she was entitled to some of his money for reasons unknown as a cryptic admission of guilt; Why else would he mention it? But I still wish he could have said straight out whether he did or didn't, + if so, why. As it is, I'm unimpressed.
On the plus side, there are plenty of amusing anecdotes + insights into the entrtainment industry 100 years ago. But overall I think it poses more questions than it answers, + I'm left feeling slightly disappointed.