BUSTER KEATON: THE TEARS - Behind the Laughs

THE COMIC ACTOR WENT INTO A FREE FALL AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS CAREER, BUT LOVE BECAME HIS SAFETY NET

- Katie Bruno

The General premiered on Jan. 22, 1927, with high hopes. Buster Keaton's ambitious comedy-adventure was a labor of love and a dangerous one, as much of the action took place on a moving train. "He famously never used a stuntman," says James Curtis, author of Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life. "His reasoning was that stuntmen didn't know how to be funny."

Buster, who was born Joseph Keaton in 1895, learned how to be funny before he learned to read. As a child performer in vaudeville, where his family toured with illusionist Harry Houdini, he discovered that a deadpan expression earned the most laughter, no matter what chaos was going on around him. "The audience was invited to imagine what was going through his mind," Curtis explains to Closer of Buster's famous "stone-faced" look.