Buster Keaton "Francis". His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, who owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal, Keaton acquired the nickname "Buster" at about 18 months of age. Keaton told interviewer Fletcher Markle that Houdini was 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,
The Buster Keaton Story early 20th centuries, child vaudevillian Buster Keaton (Larry White) stays in boarding houses, rides in train boxcars, and performs with his mother and father in a knock-about (physical comedy) act called The Three Keatons. As a young man Keaton (Donald O’Connor) travels on his own to Hollywood and tricks his way onto the grounds of silent-film studio Famous Studio as a workman carrying a board, as in one of his trademark comic bits. Sneaking onto a set, he attracts the attention of a young casting director, Gloria Brent (Ann Blyth). He demonstrates his type of physical comedy to a director