Joe Keaton

Joseph Hallie Keaton ( born July 6, 1867 in Terre Haute, Indiana; † January 13, 1946 in Ventura County, California ) was an American vaudeville performer and acrobat.

Life

Born the son of a miller Joseph Keaton was named according to a family tradition of his father and grandfather.

He tried to sit in during the gold rush unsuccessfully looking for gold and finally came as a talented dancer and acrobat in the Cutler - Byrant Medicine Show below. There he met his future wife, Myra Edtith Cutler, 17 -year-old daughter of one of the owners, know. The sequence of these shows he later described as follows: ". Between the acts we sold patent medicine, which guarantees all healed and everything leaned [ ... ] " As both 1895, with the Mohawk Medicine Show in Piqua road, their first son was born. By 1899 Joe and Myra were with changing Medicine shows on the go, including with Harry Houdini, before they tried their luck in New York on the vaudeville stage.

At the age of three years, Joe Keaton, his eldest son began to take to the stage. This was extremely resistant: Because it seemed difficult to discern something similar and falls, he got the nickname Buster '. With the talented son on stage vaudeville numbers of Joe and Myra Keaton was a great success. He created the family burlesque acrobatics in which the basic situation, namely the harsh upbringing of the child, was always varied. Joe became the father of two other children, Harry and Louise. Since children and youth protection organizations had a strict eye on him and Buster and he handled accusations of child abuse with difficulty, Harry and Louise did not come on stage. Buster played throughout his life to have been abused by his father for joint appearances.

Problems with the child protection agency and the stage manager Martin Beck amplified his alcohol addiction. The finish Busters 1917 brought the end of the family number. After Buster 1920 had his own film studio, Joe came again and again in his short films. Even in the later feature films of his son, as Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The General, he is seen.

He died in 1946 following a car accident.