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
The Buster Keaton Story the same time as Al Jolson’s blockbuster talkie, “The Jazz Singer”, reducing public interest in it. Buster struggles to adapt to performing in talking pictures. He pursues a silent film star throughout his early career, Peggy Courtney (Rhonda Fleming), who sneers at his boarding-house manners and eventually marries a European Duke in order to become a Duchess. Crushed, Keaton begins drinking heavily. The casting director, Gloria, who has been interested in him and remained his friend throughout his career has been similarly disappointed by his lack of interest in her, and plans to marry a studio executive, Tom McAffee (Richard