The Rough House

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.
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Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton... and Bob Hope. He was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s, and soon became one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1921 with Paramount Pictures for an unprecedented $1 million. In September 1921, Arbuckle attended a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco during the Labor Day weekend. Bit player Virginia Rappe became drunk and ill at the party; she died four days later at a sanitarium known for performing abortions. Arbuckle was accused by a well-known madam of raping and accidentally killing Rappe. Arbuckle endured three widely publicized trials for manslaughter. His films were subsequently banned and he was publicly ostracized. Though he was acquitted in the third trial and received a written apology from the jury, the trial's scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian.
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