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Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase
Buster Keaton (1895–1966) was a brilliant comedian and filmmaker who conceived, wrote, directed, acted, and even edited most of his ten feature films and nineteen short comedies, which are perhaps the finest silent pictures ever made. With a face of stone and a mind that engineered breathtakingly intricate moments of slapstick, Keaton has become an icon of the American cinema. Marion Meade's definitive biography explores his often brutal childhood acting experiences, the making of his masterpieces, his shame at his own lack of education, his life-threatening alcoholism, and his turbulent marriages. Based on four years of research and more than 200 interviews with notables such as Billy Wilder, Leni Riefenstahl, Gene Kelly, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Irene Mayer Selznik, as well as members of Keaton's family who had previously refused to discuss him, Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase is a startling and moving account of the troubled life of a cinematic genius.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
42 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Marion Meade
26 books92 followersMarion Meade is an American biographer and novelist, whose subjects stretch from 12th century French royalty to 20th century stand-up comedians. She is best known for her portraits of literary figures and iconic filmmakers.
Her new book, Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney, is a joint biography of a husband and wife whose lives provide a vivid picture of the artistic milieu of the Jazz Age and the Great Depression.
For more information on Lonelyhearts--and an exciting photo gallery--visit http://www.nathanaelwest.com
Her new book, Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney, is a joint biography of a husband and wife whose lives provide a vivid picture of the artistic milieu of the Jazz Age and the Great Depression.
For more information on Lonelyhearts--and an exciting photo gallery--visit http://www.nathanaelwest.com
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 9, 2012
It is a pity that Jack Dragga's excellent filmography is tied to what might be the worst professionally published book about Buster Keaton. Dragga's filmography and the photos are the only reason I can see that would justify its continued presence in print.
Otherwise, there is not much to say here that has not already been said: the book is utter trash. Meade uses her research to bolster any mean-spirited and demeaning thing about Keaton she can, whether that interpretation is supported by close associates and witnesses to events or not. Her claim that Keaton was illiterate is merely the tip of the iceberg.
She cannot even be trusted to interpret the same event the same way, offering two different accounts of how Keaton sustained a neck injury that fractured his cervical vertebrae. If we are to believe Meade, Keaton was thus injured by his abusive father during their vaudeville act, and, in accordance with Keaton's own account, as a result of the water spout that pushed him off a railroad car onto a rail in SHERLOCK, JR many years later.
Since Meade wants to have it both ways in that instance, and you need to have another less jaundiced source handy to be able to gauge her interpretation of any event against that given by people who actually worked with the man or otherwise knew him, reading her book turns into an exercise in spotting how much Meade will permit her biases to color any given event.
To that extent, if the reader is granted at least as much interpretive license as Meade has given herself while writing this book, CUT TO THE CHASE could be used to tell the reader more about the writer than it does about its subject. Meade may have created a new genre here - autobiography masquerading as biography.
Otherwise, there is not much to say here that has not already been said: the book is utter trash. Meade uses her research to bolster any mean-spirited and demeaning thing about Keaton she can, whether that interpretation is supported by close associates and witnesses to events or not. Her claim that Keaton was illiterate is merely the tip of the iceberg.
She cannot even be trusted to interpret the same event the same way, offering two different accounts of how Keaton sustained a neck injury that fractured his cervical vertebrae. If we are to believe Meade, Keaton was thus injured by his abusive father during their vaudeville act, and, in accordance with Keaton's own account, as a result of the water spout that pushed him off a railroad car onto a rail in SHERLOCK, JR many years later.
Since Meade wants to have it both ways in that instance, and you need to have another less jaundiced source handy to be able to gauge her interpretation of any event against that given by people who actually worked with the man or otherwise knew him, reading her book turns into an exercise in spotting how much Meade will permit her biases to color any given event.
To that extent, if the reader is granted at least as much interpretive license as Meade has given herself while writing this book, CUT TO THE CHASE could be used to tell the reader more about the writer than it does about its subject. Meade may have created a new genre here - autobiography masquerading as biography.
October 22, 2007
I actually stopped reading halfway through and mostly skimmed through the rest, focusing on a few passages of interest. The contention that Buster was functionally illiterate left me questioning a great deal of Meade's research, since there is plenty of physical evidence suggesting that Buster was literate, despite having little-to-no formal schooling. For a general sense of Buster's life, with his early successes, midlife failures, and rediscovery during his later years, this isn't a bad book. But many Buster enthusiasts have rightly noted that there has yet to be a biography published that tells a full story of the man's life. Attempts at sensationalism and the reassertion of certain myths merely cloud the issue.
September 10, 2019
“This book focuses on Buster’s personal life. In recent years several fine books about his films have been published, so I saw no reason to plow the same field. By exploring the various elements of his private life, my aim is to reveal a more detailed picture of the artist, which perhaps will further illuminate his art.” (3)
This is unseemly; there is no need for this poorly written, poorly conceived gossip. I don’t need to know the name of every woman Buster ever slept with, before during and after his marriages. No one does.
Please don't read this dreck. Or read it, but what she writes has little to do with Keaton's life.
This is unseemly; there is no need for this poorly written, poorly conceived gossip. I don’t need to know the name of every woman Buster ever slept with, before during and after his marriages. No one does.
Please don't read this dreck. Or read it, but what she writes has little to do with Keaton's life.
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September 5, 2007If you want to read a Buster biography PLEASE DON'T READ THIS ONE, or at least don't read this one first. It is hard to decipher why Marion Meade wanted to write a book about Buster in the first place because it comes accross in her writing that she doesn't even like him. Also she persists in spreading several myths as truth.
Not the book to start with if you want to learn about Buster.
Not the book to start with if you want to learn about Buster.
April 14, 2011
Buy this one for the photos only, not the biography. Meade did not research her subject well at all, and makes erroneous conclusions about his life. This book is condemned by all the major Keaton experts for its slipshod approach to detailing Buster's life.
November 24, 2015
I got about 40% into the audiobook before I couldn't take anymore. I knew this would be trashy going in, but I didn't understand how truly reckless and mean-spirited Meade's treatment would be.
Within the first third of the book, the author armchair diagnoses Buster Keaton with Dissociative Disorder, megalomania, and illiteracy. She uses thin to no evidence for the first two assertions, and the evidence she presents for his inability to read and write would make most performers (used a ghostwriter for his autobiography, relied on others to read incoming scripts and advise on their worthiness) and internet commenters (bad spelling and grammar in a single note to a gossip columnist) illiterate. She heavily quotes just one industry insider saying Buster returned contracts and legal documents unread or improperly signed, which doesn't prove illiteracy but further highlights everyone else's - including his own - admissions that he was the worst, least interested businessman of his era's comic stars.
In a single passage Meade paints Buster Keaton as an insufferable child star who would never be cured of his insatiable, destructive need for attention, and then refers to his teenaged reputation among fellow stage performers as a kind, respectful talent. She repeatedly refers to his cruel, indifferent womanising, but by the point I stopped listening he was an incredibly handsome film star in his twenties sleeping with other attractive actors who weren't looking for anything serious. Meade kept saying things like, this girl he was seeing must not have been happy about him moving on to the next woman. Really? Did she say so? Are you about to quote from a diary or letter in which she talks about how heartbroken she was? Give me their side of the story! This is what trashy bios are usually for, especially one that begins with its intention to focus heavily on the subject's personal life. But no. Meade makes a point of repeatedly telling us young Buster Keaton only dated free-spirited, independent young women looking for fun, and then projects a traditional spurned woman narrative on every one of them, as if it were impossible for sexy young women on a film lot to enjoy bed-hopping as much as men. Or as if this uneducated, cruel, egotistical, emotionally atrophied jerk that she's writing about somehow managed to make every beautiful starlet forget her other prospects and fall for him time and again.
I kept wondering, after each negative conclusion in this book, wait, how did we get here? I kept rewinding, thinking I had missed a particularly damning anecdote. Nope. I could deal with Buster Keaton being a terrible person who made great art, and by all other accounts he had some big flaws, but Meade took the same stories I was listening to and spit out the most dramatic conclusions she could imagine. She took an understated comic persona and saw a debilitating mental illness. She took a shy but gifted performer and saw a despotic idiot. She obviously went into her research for this book with an idea of blowing the lid wide open on the total monster every other biographer and film historian had failed to find. Trashy is one thing, but this book is just gross.
Within the first third of the book, the author armchair diagnoses Buster Keaton with Dissociative Disorder, megalomania, and illiteracy. She uses thin to no evidence for the first two assertions, and the evidence she presents for his inability to read and write would make most performers (used a ghostwriter for his autobiography, relied on others to read incoming scripts and advise on their worthiness) and internet commenters (bad spelling and grammar in a single note to a gossip columnist) illiterate. She heavily quotes just one industry insider saying Buster returned contracts and legal documents unread or improperly signed, which doesn't prove illiteracy but further highlights everyone else's - including his own - admissions that he was the worst, least interested businessman of his era's comic stars.
In a single passage Meade paints Buster Keaton as an insufferable child star who would never be cured of his insatiable, destructive need for attention, and then refers to his teenaged reputation among fellow stage performers as a kind, respectful talent. She repeatedly refers to his cruel, indifferent womanising, but by the point I stopped listening he was an incredibly handsome film star in his twenties sleeping with other attractive actors who weren't looking for anything serious. Meade kept saying things like, this girl he was seeing must not have been happy about him moving on to the next woman. Really? Did she say so? Are you about to quote from a diary or letter in which she talks about how heartbroken she was? Give me their side of the story! This is what trashy bios are usually for, especially one that begins with its intention to focus heavily on the subject's personal life. But no. Meade makes a point of repeatedly telling us young Buster Keaton only dated free-spirited, independent young women looking for fun, and then projects a traditional spurned woman narrative on every one of them, as if it were impossible for sexy young women on a film lot to enjoy bed-hopping as much as men. Or as if this uneducated, cruel, egotistical, emotionally atrophied jerk that she's writing about somehow managed to make every beautiful starlet forget her other prospects and fall for him time and again.
I kept wondering, after each negative conclusion in this book, wait, how did we get here? I kept rewinding, thinking I had missed a particularly damning anecdote. Nope. I could deal with Buster Keaton being a terrible person who made great art, and by all other accounts he had some big flaws, but Meade took the same stories I was listening to and spit out the most dramatic conclusions she could imagine. She took an understated comic persona and saw a debilitating mental illness. She took a shy but gifted performer and saw a despotic idiot. She obviously went into her research for this book with an idea of blowing the lid wide open on the total monster every other biographer and film historian had failed to find. Trashy is one thing, but this book is just gross.
September 30, 2013
I enjoyed this book. I don't think it deserved the unkind reviews it got here.
It was dirty and gritty in some parts.
And maybe even a little trashy.
I think the Author deserves credit though for the hard work that went into writing it.
It is very detailed and that is one of the things I liked about it.
It entertained me and kept me happy.
It was dirty and gritty in some parts.
And maybe even a little trashy.
I think the Author deserves credit though for the hard work that went into writing it.
It is very detailed and that is one of the things I liked about it.
It entertained me and kept me happy.
July 27, 2014
I was first introduced to Buster Keaton's work in college. I had sated myself with all things Marx Brothers and was interested in checking out other film comedians. When I saw an ad at school for a screening of The General, I caught the show and subsequently started devouring all things Buster. Eventually I saw all the major films and read all the biographies, so I moved onto other things. But recently I felt an urge to check out one of the biographies written since my Keaton fad and picked up Ms. Meade's book.
Cut to the Chase focuses more on Buster's personal life than his filmmaking. Ms. Meade tells the story of the boy who starred in vaudeville, the young man who created some of the best films of the silent era, and the older man who struggled with alcoholism and managed to work in show business until his dying day. She somewhat spoiled the idyllic picture I had in my mind of Buster's early years, knocking him and his friends and family down off the pedestal I had them on. I also think she did a better job of presenting Keaton's life in its overall historical context. (As opposed to its Hollywood historical context.) Of, course it has been over 20 years since I've read Blesh's and Dardis' efforts, so take the comparisons with a grain of salt.
Cut to the Chase focuses more on Buster's personal life than his filmmaking. Ms. Meade tells the story of the boy who starred in vaudeville, the young man who created some of the best films of the silent era, and the older man who struggled with alcoholism and managed to work in show business until his dying day. She somewhat spoiled the idyllic picture I had in my mind of Buster's early years, knocking him and his friends and family down off the pedestal I had them on. I also think she did a better job of presenting Keaton's life in its overall historical context. (As opposed to its Hollywood historical context.) Of, course it has been over 20 years since I've read Blesh's and Dardis' efforts, so take the comparisons with a grain of salt.
July 1, 2016
"A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny."
Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase by Marion Meade follows one of the greatest comedic actors from his meager beginnings in Vaudeville, his friendship and pairing with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, through the hight of his early career in the 1920s and 1930s, his failed marriages, damaged reputation and unwillingness to stay sober, to his "third act"...the rebirth of his career later in life.
Meade does a good job in telling Keaton's story. Some say she was unfair and seemed to dislike Keaton but I didn't get that impression. She seemed fair and told the story with little bias.
I've seen several of Keaton's features and a even more of his shorts (The Goat being a personal favorite) and I'm mesmerized each time I watch them. His talent, his technique and his gags are what makes him a legend. Meade does well in capturing the genius behind the hilarity.
Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase by Marion Meade follows one of the greatest comedic actors from his meager beginnings in Vaudeville, his friendship and pairing with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, through the hight of his early career in the 1920s and 1930s, his failed marriages, damaged reputation and unwillingness to stay sober, to his "third act"...the rebirth of his career later in life.
Meade does a good job in telling Keaton's story. Some say she was unfair and seemed to dislike Keaton but I didn't get that impression. She seemed fair and told the story with little bias.
I've seen several of Keaton's features and a even more of his shorts (The Goat being a personal favorite) and I'm mesmerized each time I watch them. His talent, his technique and his gags are what makes him a legend. Meade does well in capturing the genius behind the hilarity.
July 28, 2011
An interesting look at the life of one cinema's greatest comedic geniuses. The tale is a sad one, however, plagued with abuse, alcoholism, betrayal, and destitution. Still, it is also about hope since the man worked continuously throughout his life even up to the day he died.
Want to read
June 25, 2016A brilliant comedian and filmmaker who conceived, wrote, directed, acted, and even edited most of his ten feature films and nineteen short comedies, which are perhaps the finest silent pictures ever made. #memoir
Read
November 1, 2008One of the original tragic clowns.
October 20, 2021
Trash. Author is not objective, hates her subject, and wastes the reader's time with falsehoods and speculation. Pass on this one. There are better books out there.
September 29, 2017
If you want to read about Keaton, this is the one I would recommend to everyone. All that a biography should be.
December 19, 2021
En la época del cine mudo surgieron muchos buenos cómicos, incluyendo a Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Laurel y Hardy y Charley Chase, entre otros. Pero los dos verdaderos genios de ese tiempo (a pesar de lo que dicen algunos revisionistas) fueron, sin duda alguna, Charles Chaplin y Buster Keaton. Pues ambos hicieron películas que funcionan como mecanismos de relojería y supieron desarrollar personajes inconfundibles que se distinguen por un impresionante control corporal. En el caso de Keaton tenemos además a alguien que era un acróbata y un verdadero atleta, capaz de hacer cosas que ninguna otra persona podía hacer, hasta el punto que le resultaba imposible utilizar dobles. En este libro (muy bien documentado) se cuenta su vida al margen de todas las leyendas, desde su extraña infancia, en la cual participaba con su padre en un número cómico que tenía todas las características de un caso de abuso infantil (se le arrojaba como un muñeco de un lado a otro); sus inicios en el cine al lado de Fatty Arbuckle; su gran periodo creativo (cuando produjo cintas como "The General" y "Steambot Bill Jr.", con su famosa escena del huracán); y su periodo de decadencia, que en ocasiones ha sido muy exagerado, pues siguió trabajando hasta el final de su vida, por lo cual no tuvo demasiados problemas económicos, aunque hizo demasiadas cosas indignas de su capacidad (incluyendo una película mexicana). Por supuesto, éste es un libro tan sólo para los admiradores inteligentes de Keaton.
November 4, 2025
Read on Hoopla, Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase by Marion Meade published August 22, 1995. Found this book months ago and saved as Favorites on Hoopla to read when I had time.
Enjoyed reading about Kenton’s personal life.
Good read indeed
Enjoyed reading about Kenton’s personal life.
Good read indeed
June 18, 2025
Fabulous read about such an incredible actor (which does not do justice to Buster's contributions to film!).
May 6, 2025
I’m too young to remember silent movies but I found his life sad and fascinating
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews