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Hollywood husbands are regarding Buster Keaton with silent wonder and
admiration these days. First, because "to prove who wears the pants around
the house," as Buster puts it, he actually dared to "kidnap" his own children
and take them for an airplane ride to Mexico, after the missus had said
they shouldn't go; and second, because of the masterly way in which Buster
handled the recent situation.
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Natalie Talmadge Keaton, the wife and mother, rushed to the District
Attorney to ask him to have the actor detained at San Diego, where he would
have to pause for customs inspection. Newspaper reporters were panting
to write a divorce story about the Keatons. Women's clubs were wondering
if they would have to turn thumbs' down on future Keaton pictures. Everything
was at stake. A false move might have meant the loss not only of wife,
but of a career as a wooden-faced comedian in the movies.
Even an experienced publicity man might well have trembled at "breaking
the story" right. But no publicity man could have done the job better than
Buster, himself. Amazed at the excitement and hubbub his impulsive airplane
trip had stirred up, surrounded with police and reporters "and the army
and navy," according to Buster, he did the one thing that saved the situation.
He kidded it. A woman may be very angry, but she isn't going to stay
angry when she finds people laughing about it. The newspapers carried photographs
of Buster and the boys (Joseph, 9 and Robert, 8) gloomily "waiting for
Mama to come home." They carried funny interviews with Buster, telling
of his rehearsing the youngsters in their lines when Natalie returned.
Mention of the "whale oil lamp trimmed and burning in the window to light
Mama home" set a continent to chuckling.
And it probably is. After all marriage that has weathered the storms
of fifteen years - even such a severe hurricane as the Kathleen Key fracas
in Buster's dressing-room in February, 1930, in which he claimed he was
"womanhandled" - can weather many more. |
