Actors'
Colony
at Bluffton
1908 - 1938
_____________

Buster Keaton
and the
Muskegon Connection

Links to our favorite sites

Muskegon and West Michigan
 
Muskegon, A Lake Michigan Must
   
  The Actors' Colony at Bluffton
1908 - 1938
Buster Keaton
and the
Muskegon Connection

   
Save Buster's Ballfield
While Buster may have
enjoyed the occasional
 sandlot baseball game
 while on the road with the family's vaudeville act,
it wasn't until the Keatons
settled in Muskegon that his love of the game
 really flourished.

Help save this landmark!
   
Buster Keaton: In "College", Keaton goes out for the baseball team to win the heart of a co-ed.  Buster Keaton
Baseball Player
   
   
  Keaton - Bridal Run video
From the 2010 Keaton Convention.
   
 
Keaton in "The Three Ages"

McCay emerges in his masterpiece,
"Gertie the Dinosaur"
[winsor.gif]
Winsor McCay
Meeting McCay
Spring Lake, MI was the childhood home to animation pioneer Winsor McCay - a mere 15 miles away from Bluffton.
"Even Buster Keaton paid homage to McCay, in his 1923 film The Three Ages. He asked his writer, Clyde Bruckman, 'Remember Gertie the Dinosaur? . . . The first cartoon comedy ever made. I saw it in a nickelodeon when I was fourteen. I'll ride in on an animated cartoon.' "

 "Before Mickey: The Animated Film"
by Donald Crafton
   
 
The Lake Michigan Park Theater
Muskegon's
Lake Michigan Park 
   
Bluffton Church Bluffton Church
3320 Thompson Ave
Muskegon, MI

Services - Sundays at 11am
Bluffton Church  
   
ahfest - Muskegon
Every October
Muskegon Area Arts & Humanities Festival
   
 
The Stage at the Frauenthal
Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts 
   

On your way to Bluffton
The Lakeside District
located between downtown Muskegon and Bluffton
   

The Harbor Theater in Lakeside
The Harbor Theater
1937 Lakeshore Dr
Muskegon MI

A non-profit
neighborhood theater

Please support it!
   
 
An Old Fashioned Candy Store
1930 Lakeshore Dr.
Muskegon, MI

Lakeside Emporium
Purveyors Of All Things Pleasant

 
   
Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame - Our Own Heroes and Legends 
On display at the L.C Walker Arena
Muskegon Area
Sports Hall of Fame
   
Scott
and
 Sue-Hiza Rosema's

Temujin Studio

 
Keaton and Friends
  The International
Buster Keaton Society
aka - The Damfinos
   
  BusterStuff.com
   
Reproduction of 1818 Hobby Horse, This reproduction of the Pedestrian Curricle, or Hobby Horse, popularized in England in 1818 by Denis Johnson, was used in 1923 in the motion picture Our Hospitality, Catalog #: 308,263, Accession #: 71,392, From the Smithsonian Collection. Keaton's Donation to the Smithsonian
   
Buster Keaton
on Facebook
   
Project Keaton
   
  More Buster
on  Facebook
   
  David B. Pearson's
"Arbucklemania"
   
  Iola Keaton Celebration 
   
Buster Keaton at his studio, 1921.  John Bengtson's
Silent Echoes 
   
  Steamboat Willie
Walt Disney's third Mickey Mouse cartoon, released on November 18, 1928 and inspired by Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. 
   
My Career at the Rear
Buster Keaton in
 World War I

by Martha R. Jett
   
  Juha's
Buster Keaton Page
   
  Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's
Vernon Tigers
   
Pepito the Spanish Clown 
Performed before
Charlie Chaplin's
 "The Circus"

 with
Samaroff and Sonia at
Sid Grauman's prologue
"Ballyhoo"
   
  Edwin "Poodles" Hanneford
also appeared on the bill
of
"Ballyhoo"
 
Music, Film and Video
  Understanding Film
by Ranjit Sandhu
   
  Ranjit Sandhu on
The General
   
Buster Keaton CBC Archives CBC / Radio-Canada Archives
1964 Keaton interview with Telescope's Fletcher Markle, recounting his early years in vaudeville on through his days in film.  Watch the twinkle in his eyes as he recalls his days behind and in front of the camera.  Great stuff!
 
   
Buster Keaton TV Listings 
   
The Detroit Free Press describes them as "more adventurous than anyone else dares to be."
Indeed, bLuE daHLia's approach to scoring silent cinema is not traditional.  Personally, I think that's a wonderful thing!
   
   
   Mont Alto collects original compositions and orchestrations from the turn of the century through 1930 for its silent film presentations.  The results, in the words of the Dave Kehr of the New York Times, "often breathtakingly beautiful and always in the strict service of the film on the screen."
   
  The thirteen-piece Bijou Orchestra is the only ensemble of its kind in the country. They play it all, from 19th century salon orchestrations of the classics, through Ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and Swing, and on to Broadway, klezmer, Latin jazz and good old-fashioned rock and roll.
   
August and Everything After 
  Tim Lussier's
"Silents Are Golden" 
   
Marriage of the Minds by Dee Dwight Dwight Fine Arts