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 actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. This is discussed in the TCM documentary "Buster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt", with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times. Keaton was so demoralized during the production of 1933's "What! No Beer?" that MGM fired him after the filming was complete, despite the film being a resounding hit. In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, "Le Roi des Champs-Élysées". During this period, he made another film, in England, "The