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
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