Joe Keaton Joe Keaton Joseph Hallie Keaton (July 6, 1867 – January 13, 1946) was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actor. He was the father of actor Buster Keaton and appeared with his son in several of his films. Keaton was born a few miles south of Terre Haute, Indiana to Libbie Jane and Joseph Francis Keaton IV. Leaving home in 1889, the year of the Land Rush, he homesteaded in the Oklahoma territory for a time, securing a claim three and a half miles northwest of Edmond. A few months into Keaton's residency, the neighboring homesteader (a Canadian whom
Buster Keaton second foot up next to it and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. "I've Got a Secret" host Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you'. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it—it "hurt"—but you had to care enough not to care." Keaton's periodic television appearances helped to revive interest in his silent films during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, he played his first television dramatic role in "The Awakening", an episode