Joe Keaton Joe Keaton Joseph Hallie Keaton (July 6, 1867 – January 13, 1946) was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actor. He was the father of actor Buster Keaton and appeared with his son in several of his films. Keaton was born a few miles south of Terre Haute, Indiana to Libbie Jane and Joseph Francis Keaton IV. Leaving home in 1889, the year of the Land Rush, he homesteaded in the Oklahoma territory for a time, securing a claim three and a half miles northwest of Edmond. A few months into Keaton's residency, the neighboring homesteader (a Canadian whom
Buster Keaton of the syndicated anthology series "Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents". About this time, he also appeared on NBC's "The Martha Raye Show". Also in 1954, Keaton and his wife Eleanor met film programmer Raymond Rohauer with whom they developed a business partnership to re-release his films. Actor James Mason bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classic "The Boat". Keaton had prints of the features "Three Ages", "Sherlock Jr.", "Steamboat Bill, Jr.", and "College" (missing one reel), and the shorts "The Boat" and "My Wife's Relations", which Keaton and Rohauer then transferred to