ide to show up as all around him bride after bride gathers until the room is filled, all without his noting a thing. Chaplin is far more aware of his surroundings even if unable to control them, and Keaton's lack of control begins with his blithe ignorance of what is happening to him. For both characters though, the slapstick derives from the way their characters find themselves in the middle of situations where they cannot control what happens and where they are buffeted by the inanimate world as well as by the actions of other human beings.
Keaton started in show business at an early age. He was born Joseph Frank Keaton to a pair of medicine show performers, Joseph Hallie Keaton and Myra Cutler Keaton, on October 4, 1895. He would acquire the name Buster, according to legend, from Harry Houdini, who played on the same bill with the five-year-old and his family. Buster supposedly made his first appearance on stage crawling on from the wings at the age of nine months, and by the time he was three, he was regularly appearing with his folks in tow
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