Raymond Rohauer and Buster Keaton

When Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was born on October 4th, 1895 in Kansas, his family was in vaudeville and had been playing in Kansas. His mother was Myra Cutler and his father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton. He had two siblings: a brother, Harry, and a sister, Louise. His father owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini. The show performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. Buster began performing with his parents at the age of 3 as "the Three Keatons". It was mainly a comedy show: Dad Joe tossing son Buster around the stage, into the audience, or even into the orchestra pit. Buster was never hurt - he learned how to fall safely - and even found it fun, often laughing. But because when he laughed, the audience laughed less, he adopted a "deadpan" face - which later became his trademark. He began acting in films around 1917 and continued throughout his adult years. He was one of the most popular comedians of all time, spanning several generations. "Buster" married Natalie Talmadge , a famous silent screen star in 1921. After having two sons, Robert Talmadge Keaton and Buster Keaton Jr, they were divorced eleven years later. The divorce was bitter and thereafter, Norma - who had custody of their sons - insisted on Robert and Joseph using the surname Talmadge and that they not see their father. Buster then married a nurse, Mae Scribbins, in 1932. They divorced in 1935. In 1940, he married a dancer, Eleanor Norris, to whom he was married when he died. Buster died at the age of 70 in Woodland Hills, California. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. See Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton: Obituary.

Raymond Rohauer (1924, Buffalo, New York – November 10, 1987) was an American film collector and distributor. Early life and career Rohauer moved to California in 1942 and was educated at Los Angeles City College. Rohauer made a five-reel 16mm experimental film Whirlpool (1947) which was not successful. He subsequently became active in film exhibition at the Coronet Theatre from 1950, which was, according to William K. Everson, a "bizarre combination of art house, film society and exploitation cinema". in 1954, Rohauer met Buster Keaton and his wife, Eleanor; the couple would develop a business partnership with him to re-release Keaton's films. The Coronet Theatre art house in Los Angeles, with which Rohauer was involved, was showing The General which "Buster hadn't seen ... in years and he wanted me to see it," Eleanor Keaton said in 1987. "Raymond recognized Buster and their friendship started." Rohauer in that same article recalls, "I was in the projection room. l got a ring that Buster Keaton was in the lobby. I go down and there he is with Eleanor. The next day I met with him at his home. I didn't realize we were going to join forces. But I realized he had this I-don't-care attitude about his stuff. He said, 'It's valueless. I don't own the rights.'"] Keaton had prints of the features the Three Ages, Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill, Jr., College (missing one reel) and the shorts "The Boat" and "My Wife's Relations", which Keaton and Rohauer had transferred to safety stock from deteriorating nitrate film stock. Other prints of Keaton's films had been found in the home of the actor James Mason who had bought the property from Keaton, and passed them on to Rohauer. Rohauer was known for claiming rights to films under dubious pretexts and pursued court battles over The Birth of a Nation, eventually found to be in the public domain, and other classics. Often he would re-edit films in order to be able to claim copyright on them and charge a licensing fee. Later career] During the 1960s, Rohauer returned to America's East Coast and became the film curator of the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art in New York City, although the gallery's existence was relatively brief. In some cases he acquired the rights to stories from the estates of deceased writers, so gaining a hold over The Sheik (1921), produced by Paramount and starring Rudolph Valentino. Alternatively he found instances where living writers no longer held the rights to their work, an example being the J.B. Priestley novel Benighted, which was the basis for The Old Dark House (1932), James Whale's Universal horror film that had been thought lost. According to William K. Everson, he would claim to overseas contacts that he had won libel suits which he had, in fact, lost or accept bookings for silent films that no longer existed. Rohauer was involved in the preservation of out-takes from the films of Charlie Chaplin which were saved after the filmmaker was forced to leave the United States in 1952. This material formed the basis of the Unknown Chaplin series in 1983. Such was Rohauer's reputation in this field that Kevin Brownlow, the co-producer of this series and the earlier Hollywood (1980), had not previously allowed his production staff to use Rohauer's resources. Brownlow considered him a "pirate", while William K. Everson preferred "freebooter" as it implies the "certain cavalier charm that Rohauer possessed". Death and legacy At the time, Rohauer was reported to have died at the St. Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, New York City from complications following a heart attack on November 10, 1987. The 700 titles amassed by Rohauer became part of the Cohen Film Collection in 2011. As of 2013 are in the process of being restored for new screenings and release on DVD. NOTE: Raymond Rohauer's life was publicly trashed and in print long after his death by William K. Everson. Yet, as a publicist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Silas F. Seadler for many years, I can tell you that I was there at the Museum of Modern Art for so many screenings, and I had met so many stars that had been ignored for years. Raymond Rohauer was highly respected by stars, directors, publicists, film moguls and film buffs.