Silver Voices: Buster Keaton Interview (1958)

Interview conducted by George Pratt on April 18, 1953, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:00 Early Life – Family and performing Vaudeville   00:03:30 Early Career – Meeting Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and start in pictures   00:09:34 Early Career -- THE GARAGE (1920)   00:11:05 Early Career – Buster Keaton Productions and distribution with Metro   00:18:30 Early Career  – Pivot from shorts to features, OUR HOSPITALITY (1923), THE NAVIGATOR (1924) and THE GENERAL (1926) 00:24:43 Early Career – Short films with Edward F. Cline: HARD LUCK (1921), THE BOAT (1921), THE PLAYHOUSE (1921) 00:32:10 Early Career – THE FROZEN NORTH (1922), THE ELECTRIC HOUSE (1922) 00:39:20 Early Life – Movie-going experiences at vaudeville shows, BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) and Mack Sennett productions 00:42:00 Early Career – THREE AGES (1923), SHERLOCK JR. (1924) and trick photography   00:54:10 Career – SEVEN CHANCES (1925), GO WEST (1925) 00:59:30 Career – THE GENERAL (1926) 01:05:00 Career – COLLEGE (1927)   01:07:00 Career – STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1928) 01:09:35 Career – THE CAMERAMAN (1928) 01:17:00 Career – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract, working with director Edward Sedgwick 01:22:19 Late Career – LIMELIGHT (1952) 01:31:45 Reflections – Favorite films from career The Silver Voices Project, which allowed for digitization and sharing of this archival audio, was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, grant number MA-30-19-0681-19. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this audio do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services . Photo by Apeda Studio, courtesy Stills, Posters, and Paper Collections, George Eastman Museum.