The silent-film era star had the chance to make audiences laugh over decades of his career

NEED TO KNOW

• Buster Keaton was born to actors and began working in vaudeville at just 3 years old
• The actor began finding success after being mentored by Fatty Arbuckle and breaking into his own films in the 1920s, recognized for keeping a straight face through unthinkable stunts
• Keaton inspired physical comedy in generations that followed, with some of his biggest stunts recreated over the years

Before Johnny Knoxville made us laugh with some of the most insane stunts in history, there was Buster Keaton.

Born Joseph Frank Keaton, the actor was a star of vaudeville and early film, known for his prowess at physical comedy and stunt work. He began acting at just 3 years old and continued in vaudeville until he met Fatty Arbuckle in Feb. 1917. Arbuckle got Keaton started in film and from there, his success began to grow. Keaton worked as Arbuckle's protégé over the following years, rising to the role of assistant director and writer.

In a 1963 interview, Keaton revealed that he got the nickname Buster from magician Harry Houdini, with whom his parents were performing when he was a young child.

"I fell down a flight of stairs when I was around six months old. They picked me up … no bruises, didn't seem to hurt myself, and Houdini said, ‘That was a Buster!' And the old man says, 'That's a good name; we'll call him that.' "

In the early 1920s, Keaton got to work on his own films, eventually moving into feature-length films. It was there that he experimented with physical comedy like no one before him had. Keaton was unafraid of doing his own stunts. He's best known for a death-defying stunt in 1928's Steamboat Bill, Jr., where a 4,000 pound facade of a house had to fall just so in order for the actor to walk away unscathed.

While he made it through that stunt unharmed, there were instances of injury. Notably, in 1924's Sherlock Jr., Keaton broke his neck without immediately realizing it. It would be years of pain that he hadn't equated with the on-set injury that led him to get an X-ray, which showed the break.

Keaton was also known for remaining straight-faced through any situation he went through on screen, gaining the nickname "The Great Stone Face."

Keaton enjoyed success until the late 1920s, when personal and professional strife led him away from the spotlight. He still had the love of performing in his heart and did eventually return to acting in the 1940s, revered by those who followed him for his unforgettable moments on screen. He enjoyed roles throughout the 50s and 60s. In 1966, Keaton died of lung cancer at age 70.

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Knoxville himself has named Keaton among the most influential figures to him, appearing in the 2018 documentary The Great Buster. He shared, "Buster's always been with me, and always will be with me."

"Our stunts always play in they why. There's no fudging. The guy doing the stunt is doing it for real. He felt very strongly about that, and I feel very strongly about that."

Of Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. stunt, Knoxville points out the horrible news and circumstances that surrounded the actor in the lead-up to filming that scene.

"They come up to him and said, 'Look, MGM just bought your rights,' and he's going through all that with his wife. He just got two terrible cases of bad news right before you do a stunt that could take his life. And he still did it," Knoxville said.

He remembered his own attempt at the house facade stunt for Jackass No. 2, where he walked off his mark after hearing the crew yell "cut" and ended up being hit by the house.

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