#Eleanor keaton professional

With his independent filmmaking career taken from him, two failed marriages, most of his money gone, and a history of alcoholism, Keaton, 42 years old when they met in 1938, was quite the opposite of the pretty and popular Eleanor, then aged 19. They dated for about a year before he proposed marriage. One time, however, she snapped back at another player who 'made a nasty remark' about a card she had played, and Keaton raised his eyes and noticed her. Norris later said that she sat at Keaton's bridge game a few nights a week for over a year without interacting with her host. Keaton was known as 'one of the best bridge players in Hollywood', and a friend introduced her to the game at Keaton's house in Cheviot Hills. Norris became acquainted with Buster Keaton in 1938 when she was looking to improve her bridge game. What I liked best about Buster was that he was easy to live with and fun to work with.

Marriage to Buster Keaton Buster and Eleanor Keaton in 1965 She appeared in the chorus of several MGM musicals, including Born to Dance (1936) and Rosalie (1937). At age 17, she worked as a dancer in the New York nightclub of Harry Richman, and also became a contract dancer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios. Norris took dance lessons as a child and dropped out of school at age 15 to join a nightclub act called Six Blondes from Hollywood, which toured internationally. Norris later said that she matured quickly after her father's death and became 'a pretty direct and straightforward young lady'. Her mother raised her and her sister on a small pension from the studio. Her father, a studio electrician for Warner Brothers, died in a fall from a scaffold in January 1929, aged 37. She was the eldest of two daughters of Ralph and Jessie Norris. Bernard dogs, was a gag consultant for Hollywood filmmakers, and was an invited speaker at silent-film screenings.Įleanor Ruth Norris was born in Hollywood, California, in May 1918. In her later years, she bred champion St. After his death in 1966, she helped ensure Keaton's legacy by giving many interviews to biographers, film historians, and journalists, sharing details from his personal life and career, and also attended film festivals and celebrations honoring Keaton. The two performed at the Cirque Medrano in Paris and on European tours in the 1950s she also performed with him on The Buster Keaton Show in the early 1950s.

She is credited with rehabilitating her husband's life and career. She was an MGM contract dancer in her teens and became the third wife of silent-film comedian Buster Keaton at the age of 21. Fresh prints of classic film stills and never-before-published photos from the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, together with a lively, anecdotal text, offer a behind-the-scenes look at how Keaton came up with his hilarious ideas, choreographed his elaborate stunts, and crafted his films.Eleanor Ruth Keaton (May 1918 – October 19, 1998) was an American dancer and variety show performer.

#Eleanor keaton professional

Drawing on professional papers, screenplays, studio records, and scrapbooks, the authors trace Keaton's beginnings in vaudeville, where he perfected his gags his first silent shorts with Roscoe Arbuckle the brilliant features he conceived, directed, produced, and performed in and his later sound films for M-G-M and others. In Buster Keaton remembered, an illustrated survey of Keaton's career, Eleanor Keaton, his wife of 26 years, and film historian Jeffrey Vance provide a personal account of this icon of American cinema.

Decades after their release, his movies remain unsurpassed marvels of comic invention and mechanical timing. Known for his legendary stone face and physical gags, Buster Keaton was a genius of silent-film comedy.