Buster Keaton ever made. Keaton was recognized as the seventh-greatest film director by "Entertainment Weekly", and the American Film Institute ranked him in 1999 as the 21st greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema. Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Keaton ("née" Cutler), was when she went into labor. He was named "Joseph" to continue a tradition on his father's side (he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton) and "Frank" for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of his parents' union. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to
Buster Keaton the City of Los Angeles declared the date "Buster Keaton Day." 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. 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