Keaton Celebration, September 27 and 28, 2002
 Bowlus Fine Arts Center
 205 E. Madison, Iola, Kansas
 620-365-4765


WWI, Dark Comedy, and Film is topic of the 17th annual Buster Keaton Celebration, Iola, Kansas, September 25 and 26, 2009

Sept. 2009 CELEBRATION:
17th Annual Buster Keaton Celebration .
WWI, Dark Comedy, and Film

Films and presentations
Sept. 25-26, 2009
Bowlus Fine Arts Center
Iola, Kansas
Admission - Free

Watch this space for details


Iola Keaton 2009 Official Web Site
Keaton in WWI
Buster Keaton: Comedian/Soldier

Noteable Registrants: WWI Draft
National WWI Museum at Liberty Memorial, K.C., MO
WWI Museum, a personal tour


Two radio programs about 2005 event are now available on-line:

KRPS
Buster Keaton Festival
(playable with Real Player)
Date aired:  October 10, 2005

There's a silent film festival in Southeast Kansas that celebrates the accomplishments of an unlikely hero.
KRPS's Martha Kungle visited Iola for this report.


American Public Media (playable with Real Player)
weekendamerica.org Looking for Buster
Broadcast Date: October 8, 2005
What do New York filmmaker Woody Allen and Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan have in common?
They've borrowed 80-year-old comedy gags from Buster Keaton, an actor, director and writer
who would have been 110 years old this week.
Producer and Keaton fan Yolanda Perdomo traveled to a Keaton convention in Iola, Kansas,
to experience all things Keaton with one of his youngest fans, her three-year-old son.
See also:
Also from the APM site: Downloadable Buster Keaton movie video:

The Paleface (1921)
Daydreams (1921)
The Playhouse (1921)
The Blacksmith (1922)


Columbia University transcriptions and audio files of Keaton talking about his career:
Interview: Buster Keaton on Comedy and Making Movies
Session One  — Buster Keaton's Vaudeville Childhood
Session Two  — "Fatty" Arbuckle Puts Buster Keaton in the Movies
Session Three  — Buster Keaton on Making Movies
Session Four  — Buster Keaton on the End of Silent Films
Listen to the interviews, then take the Quiz.


Hear Buster play ukulele at a Hollywood party—excerpts from a tape once owned by his widow, Eleanor Keaton: NPR Lost & Found Sound: The Sounds of Silents

Visit: Generally Buster web site
About the passing of Buster's son, James Talmadge


Buster Keaton was almost literally "born in a trunk."
His parents had stopped in Piqua, Kansas in early October, 1895 while
performing with a traveling medicine show. Myra Keaton missed playing the saxophone at
the October 4th performance when Buster arrived,
delivered in a boarding house just across the street from the site of the evening performance.
Young Keaton began appearing on stage with his parents at a tender age,
became a child vaudeville star on Broadway, and earned a reputation as a comic genius
in the world at large with a body of classic silent film comedy.
He died in California in 1966.


In 1992, the city of Iola, Kansas, seven miles east of Piqua,
decided that it was time to start celebrating
the life of their Kansas native son with an annual Buster Keaton Celebration.

All celebrations have been hosted by the Bowlus Fine Arts Center of Iola.
Past celebrations have included insights into Buster's work by such notibles as
Eleanor Keaton
, David Shepard, Steve Allen, Kevin Brownlow and Leonard Maltin. These and other Keaton experts have mixed with fans in this pleasant,
small-town atmosphere. Celebrations occur on the last weekend of September
We celebrate the life of Buster Keaton with film, lecture, music and sharing.

All events are free and open to the public.
Funded, in part, by the Kansas Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kansas Arts Commission
with help from the Iola Tourism Fund, the Daniels Estate, and private donations


Fall of 2009 marks the 19th Annual Keaton Celebration in Iola, Kansas. Whereas the first 3 celebrations were not recorded, below is a record of the celebrations since 1996.

Keaton Celebration Archive:

2008: Keaton & Will Rogers
2007:
Keaton & Douglas Fairbanks
2006:
Keaton & the Funny Ladies
2005:
Keaton & W.C. Fields
2004:
Keaton & Kovacs
2003:
Keaton Vaudeville
2002
: 10th Anniversary Celebration
2001: 2001, a Keaton Odyssey
2000: Keaton and Laurel & Hardy
1999: Keaton and Lloyd
1998: Keaton and Pickford
1997: Keaton and Chaplin
1996: Keaton and Arbuckle
Speakers List: 1993-1995


regional map

RV Parks are in LaHarpe
(4 miles east of Iola on H-54)
phone 620-496-2341,
Riverside Park, Iola,
call 620-365-4930.
Also in Humboldt / Yates Center according to the
Chamber of Commerce.
Call COC, 620-365-5252,
for more information.

Keaton Piqua Museum
The Damfinos
Iola Keaton site
Actors Colony, Bluffton, MI

 

IOLA accommodations:

Best Western Majestic Inn 620-365-5161
Crossroads Motel 620-365-2183
Super 8 Motel 620-365-3030

CHANUTE motels (20 miles South on US 169):
Guest House Motor Inn 620-431-0600
Holiday Park Motel 620-431-0850
Safari Inn 620-431-9460
Skyline Motel 629-431-1500
Super 8 620-431-7788
Tioga Suites 620
-431-4310 (can register online)
Moran Bed & Breakfast (12 miles East on US 54):
Hedgeapple Acres 620-237-4646

YATES CENTER motels (20 miles West on US 54):

Star Motel 620-625-2175.
Townsman Motel 620-625-2131


The 2009 Damfinos’ Convention (the International Buster Keaton Society) will be held in Muskegon, Michigan, October 2 & 3, 2009. Friends join friends to see rare film and TV clips of Buster Keaton and hear historians’ presentations.

©2002-2009 by Carol Yoho
Acme e-media
Acme Archives

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