Buster Keaton

After being featured in several comedies with Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton starred in a series of two reel comedies distributed by Metro between 1920 and 1923. After graduating to feature-length films, he returned to shorts with Educational Pictures and Columbia Pictures in the '30s and '40s. Keaton's screen persona was in some ways a continuation of his stage persona, only more exaggerated: a handsome, dignified, and resourceful young man whose deadpan "stone face" depicted emotion with stunning and brilliant subtlety. Buster was lithe and extremely athletic at five feet, six inches tall, weighing only 140 pounds. He moved with the smoothness of a dancer but in a whirlwind style, whether he was caught in the clutches of a machine, running against a rain storm, or dogged by screen enemies. Buster was also eclectic: one never knew exactly what to expect from his next film project, which of course kept his audiences guessing and coming back to the theater again and again.