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,
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