UPDATE: Hard to argue with hearing it from the man himself:
Buster Keaton explaining how he got his name pic.twitter.com/mPCiO6ENGN— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs) September 24, 2017
Monday, October 15, 2012
Did Houdini really give Buster Keaton his name?
The blog Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed has tackled the question of whether Houdini really gave silent star Buster Keaton his famous nickname. They are claiming the story is false, and the case they make is interesting. I'll leave it up to you to read and decide.
UPDATE: Hard to argue with hearing it from the man himself:
UPDATE: Hard to argue with hearing it from the man himself:
In his book "My wonderful World of Slapstick" Buster says Houdini gave him the nickname.
ReplyDeleteWho are you going to believe?
I'm going to believe the guy that did the research. Just because somebody says something in an interview doesn't make it a fact. Try watching an interview with Orson Welles talking about who wrote Citizen Kane and then read John Houseman's autobiography and see who you believe.
DeleteAnd just because Keaton said it, doesn't make him a liar.
DeleteAccording to Keaton, he was six months old when he took the fall. So this story is what he was told by his parents. They were good friends with Houdini. Joe Keaton and Houdini were business partners at one time. They traveled the same vaudeville circuits.
The researcher may be right, and he may be wrong. If I had a dollar every time a newspaper reporter got the story wrong, I'd be a rich man. Same goes for biographers.
Don't believe it. It was a small vaudevillian tab show guy named George Purdy who whilst Joe and Myra were playing Myers Lake in Canton , Ohio, their little boy took a spill down a flight of stairs and didn't make a sound. George turned to Joe and said, "My what a Buster" Joe Keaton liked the sound of the name and kept it. Circa 1899 it was reported in The Akron Beacon Journal naming Purdy as the man who gave Joe Keaton, Jr. His moniker....the rest is history....Buster took a lot of prat falls to live up to that name.
ReplyDeleteDid Harry every refute that he named Buster?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if Houdini himself ever said anything about it.
Deleteit makes sense and Buster is a good name for such a character I believe him
ReplyDeleteWell someone gave him his name why not Houdini. or he came up with it himself he was from a vaudeville family After all. either way doesn’t matter to me it was and she’ll always be the great Buster .rest in peace thanks for the Laughs That keep on giving in the 20th 21st century and beyond
ReplyDelete