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 for some scenes. His final appearance on film was a 1965 safety film produced in Toronto by the Construction Safety Associations of Ontario, and he died shortly after completing it. Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill. When Keaton transposed his experience in vaudeville to film, in many works he parodied melodramas. Other favorite targets were cinematic plots, structures and devices. One of his most biting parodies is "The Frozen North" (1922),