The 19th Annual Buster Keaton Celebration was a raving success, said Susan Raines, Executive Director for the Bowlus Fine Arts Center, the site of the silent film festival.
“From the standpoint of how people felt about all of our presentations, and they were all Kansas related, I’d say it was a success,” she said. “The hotels and restaurants were full, so that’s always a good sign.”
Raines estimated about 400 people graced the fine arts center’s quarters during the two day festival.
Throughout the party celebrating the birth of silent film star Buster Keaton, who in 1895 was born in Piqua on a train passing through southeast Kansas, guests were presented with all sort of tidbits about Kansas film history. From Martin and Osa Johnson, filmmakers from Chanute and Independence, to Delbert Mann, a Lawrence native who won an Oscar award, Tony Fox of Fort Scott, in attendance Saturday afternoon, said all the presenters were impressive.
“Living in little old Kansas, you never think about all the celebrity history,” he said. “You think about the Civil War and the stuff typical of the Midwest, but you never think we had a role in Hollywood.”
