When only a few months old, (Buster Keaton) nearly suffocated after being accidentally shut in a costume trunk off stage while his mother and father performed, an incident that encouraged his parents to begin leaving him at whatever boarding house they were residing in. According to family legend, the Keatons then escaped from a series of fires and train wrecks that would have destroyed a less charmed family. Finally, on one harrowing day when he was nearly three: Buster caught his right forefinger in a clothes wringer, losing the first joint, gashed his head near the eye with a brick that boomeranged after he threw it at a peach tree and was sucked out of an upstairs window by a passing cyclone that carried him floating through the air and conveniently deposited him, unhurt, in the middle of a street a few blocks away. After that, his parents decided he'd be safer on stage ... (read more here)

born 4 October 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, as Joseph Frank Keaton Jr.
married to actress Natalie Talmadge; two sons; divorced
married in 1930s; divorced
married Eleanor Ruth Norris in 1940; together until Buster's death on February 1 1966 of lung cancer

began in vaudeville with father Joe Keaton and mother Myra Keaton in 1896
began film work in 1917 for Comique

from http://www.touchstone.freeserve.co.uk/keaton/about.html:

Buster Keaton was one of the greatest screen comedians the world has ever seen. Born in 1895 when film-making was in its infancy, by the end of the 1920s he had become the most versatile star of the silent era. Actor, comedian, stuntman, writer, director. He excelled at them all. The most graceful of actors, his films are filled with wonderful moments, from deceptively simple but effective gags through to elaborate and life threatening stunts. He was a pioneer in the use of special effects, appearing on-screen simultaneously nine times in The Playhouse (1921). By the end of the 1920s he had appeared in over 20 shorts and a dozen features, among them some of the greatest comedies ever seen. The General, his 1926 masterpiece, often appears in lists of the 'Top 100 Films Of All Time'. At the start of the thirties, with changes in studio structures and the introduction of sound, Buster lost artistic control over his films. He became dependant on alcohol, and as the 1930s and 1940s passed he moved out of the public eye. He continued to make films, but nothing matched the quality of his early work. During the fifties, with appearances on television and cameos in a handful of major studio films, interest in his silent films began to grow. Prints that hadn't been seen since the 1920s were unearthed and screened to enthusiastic audiences. Just before his death in 1966, Buster Keaton was finally receiving the recognition he deserved.

see busterkeaton.com

Robert is a well-known Australian pianist, composer and improviser. He has a particular fascination with improvising accompaniments for silent films (at least three of his great-aunts and -uncles used to play professionally for the "silents" in the period following World War 1) and has been presenting some of the classics in this genre for many years. His work with silent films transcends mere background music, combining his various pianistic, composing and improvising abilities to create an instant soundscape for the images on the screen. With this approach he enters into a genuine artistic partnership with the film. He has a particular affinity with Buster Keaton and over the last ten years has interpreted most of the Keaton classics. Having retired as Professor and Dean of Music at the University of Newcastle, Robert is now Head of the School of Music, University of Auckland.

from a review (edited) by Tim Dirks:

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) is the last of physical comedian Buster Keaton's (the Great Stone Face) nine independent feature films and one of the last silent comedies. The film - actually co-written, co-produced, and co-directed by actor Keaton (with director Chas. F. Reisner) - was derived from a story by Carl Harbaugh, although Keaton took credit only for acting. The two most amazing sequences: (1) Keaton's dare-devil, death-defying stunt (he performed his own stunts) when a three-story building facade crashes down on top of him, saving him because the third floor window opening clears his head, and (2) the destructive cyclone sequence. This farcical film, probably Keaton's funniest, was his third last silent feature film. He followed it with two final silent comedies at MGM: The Cameraman (1928) and Spite Marriage (1929). His independent feature films for producer Joseph Schenck (from 1923 to 1928) were: Three Ages 1923 with Wallace Beery and Oliver Hardy Our Hospitality 1923 with Natalie Talmadge (Keaton's real-life wife) Sherlock, Jr. 1924 with Kathryn McGuire The Navigator 1924 with Kathryn McGuire Seven Chances 1925 with Ruth Dwyer Go West 1925 with Kathleen Myers The General 1927 with Marion Mack College 1927 with Ann Cornwall Steamboat Bill, Jr 1927 with Marion Byron This was Keaton's last independent film for producer Schenck. He went on to make a few films for MGM, but none of them (except possibly for The Cameraman (1928)) reached the same heights of innovative brilliance. The story involves the father-son tale of an educated, effeminate, accident-prone, college-educated but simple-minded son - an archetypal underdog American hero - who ultimately is transformed and triumphs when he assists and impresses his burly, red-necked, hard-working Mississippi steamboat captain father in combating the threatening efforts of a rival tycoon to take over the Mississippi steamboat business in the South - and also wins over the business rival's daughter. The opening - a slow pan from right to left - sets the locale in the small, riverside town of River Junction, Mississippi, in the Deep South. A fancy and modern "new steamer" paddle-wheeling on the Mississippi River, named the King, approaches the town's waterfront dock on its inaugural cruise. The handsome riverboat is owned by formally-dressed John James King (Tom McGuire). Already moored at the dock is "the old steamer," a dilapidated and ancient Mississippi boat named Stonewall Jackson which is owned by tough and brawny captain William Canfield (Ernest Torrence), better known as Steamboat Bill. During the festivities, he smokes a pipe and spits to the side, showing his disgust for the competition. Bill's "first and last mate" is round-faced and rotund Tom (Tom Lewis). After "King" is tied up, J. J. King delivers a speech to the large crowd of bystanders assembled on the bunting-decorated dock. He boasts how his successful enterprise will ruin Bill Canfield's business: King: This floating palace should put an end to that thing Steamboat Bill is running. Tom: (dour-faced, to Bill): Looks like you'll have to look for a new river. Bill: I'll run on this river if I'm the only passenger on the boat. After a fade-out, Bill receives a vaguely-worded telegram (that arrived four days earlier) from his son, announcing the time of his arrival and how he can't be mistaken: William Canfield Sr. Steamboat Stonewall Jackson River Junction Miss Dear Dad It was Mothers wish that when I had finished school to pay you a visit. I think I arrive Saturday Ten A M. You can't mistake me. I'll be wearing a white carnation. Regards William Canfield Jr. Bill hasn't seen his son for many years: "It's from my Willie, I haven't seen him since he was a baby." The telegram (and Bill's reaction) hints at the separation that young Steamboat Bill (Willie) Canfield Jr. (Buster Keaton) has had from his father, while he grew up and attended school in the East (Boston). Bill is hopeful that his grown-up son will be a muscular giant ("Must be a big lad by now" and "I'll bet he's bigger'n me") who will aid him in his conflict with the rich J. J. King. Both Tom and Bill realize that it is already Saturday and the time of the train's arrival, so they hop on the Stonewall Jackson's multi-seated, open-air, free shuttle vehicle to the train depot ... more

Madcap chases and hilarious displays of physical agility are the highlights of this frenetic Buster Keaton short. Dumb luck sets some policemen on his trail -- after a series of innovative escapes, he gets mistaken for a murderer ("Dead Shot Dan") with a price on his head, which means the people that aren't chasing him are fleeing from him. Nonstop laughter.

This short contains one of Keaton's more memorable images: A shot of a distant, speeding train which approaches the camera, and stops with a close-up of Keaton who has been sitting on the front of the train.