The Blacksmith

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Buster Keaton was recognized... as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies." Orson Welles stated that Keaton's The General is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made." A 2002 worldwide poll by Sight & Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator. Keaton was born Joseph Frank Keaton into a vaudeville family.
more

Malcolm St. Clair was a Hollywood film director, writer, producer and actor, he was sometimes credited as Mal St Clair. A disciple of Mack Sennett, St. Clair was an actor in many films primarily comedies. At 6'7" he can be seen in such Sennett films as Yankee Doodle in Berlin, towering over the... other actors, playing Crown Prince Wilhelm. He later moved on to director and directed almost 100 films, as well as producing five others, between 1915 and 1948. His brother, Eric St Clair, was a writer and actor. He directed most of Laurel and Hardy's later films at 20th Century Fox, and at least two of the Jones Family series at the same studio. In 1950 after a brief retirement, he was to attempt a comeback into films, but due to ill health he retired permanently from films. He died at age 55 and was interred at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California.
more