CHARACTERS - partial list, with some ideal casting suggestions, as envisioned:

BUSTER KEATON - the brilliant comedian who lived to create comedy, at the expense of other life details. (Rami Malek or Cillian Murphy - Director Christopher Nolan, work with the man again here. And imagine, another great, tortured genius portrayed by your hand. He is an iconic, soulful characer.)

ELEANOR KEATON - a tough, twenty years younger, studio dancer who fell for Buster and helped him regain his magic. (Jennifer Lawrence)

NATALIE TALMADGE KEATON - Buster’s first wife, a social climber with two hugely popular movie star sisters, dubious of Buster’s career as a “comedian”. (Alicia Vikander)

FATTY ARBUCKLE - The doomed, life loving, decidedly non-intellectual, rotund comedian who gave Buster his start in film. (Bobby Moynihan, Josh Gad)

JOE KEATON - Buster’s alcoholic, frustrated performer father, who becomes resentful of Buster’s success. (J.K. Simmons)

MYRA KEATON - Buster’s earthly, no nonsense, vaudeville performer, pinochle addicted, mother. (Lily Tomlin)

HARRY HOUDINI - The legendary escape artist and former vaudeville partner of Joe Keaton. He was Buster’s godfather and a strong, early inspiration to the young Buster.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN - The comic genius, who warily recognizes in Buster a fellow creative soul.

PEG TALMADGE - Natalie’s dominant, over-protective stage mother who influences Nathalie and Buster’s divorce. (Margo Martindale)

RAYMOND ROHAUER - the shifty, obsessive promoter who hunts down Buster’s “lost” films and unexpectedly becomes Buster’s guardian angel late in his life. (Johnny Depp - said to be a huge Keaton fan)

OTHERS: JOSEPH SCHENCK (Buster’s producer before MGM), CLYDE BRUCKMAN (Buster’s head writer and an eventual co-director), LOUIS B. MAYER (head of MGM who clashed with Buster)

A SCRIPTED SIX PART MINI-SERIES

“One of the best scripts I have ever read!” Kevin Thomas - Los Angeles Times Film Critic (retired)

KEATON - MINISERIES/BIOPIC EPISODES SUMMARY

PILOT - EPISODE ONE - A credit sequence mentions that BUSTER KEATON was once a top comedian of the silent film era, rivaled only by the great CHARLIE CHAPLIN and the higher grossing HAROLD LLOYD. A nightmare dream sequence ends with BUSTER being attacked by the MGM studio titan LOUIS B. MAYER, before his strait jacketed, middle aged self is seen lying in a sanitarium. We jump backwards, watching young BUSTER inspired by the onstage magic of his godfather HARRY HOUDINI, and thrown around the vaudeville stage by his father JOE KEATON. BUSTER eventually works for and becomes friends with the jovial comedian ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE, who resists Buster’s attempts to get him to upgrade his material, before producer JOSEPH SCHENCK gives Buster his own production company…

EPISODE TWO - Now making short comedies, BUSTER deals with his jealous, alcoholic father JOE and hones his craft with his key writers, as top star CHARLIE CHAPLIN warily takes note of him. BUSTER marries reserved NATALIE TALMADGE, who along with her famous movie star sisters NORMA and CONSTANCE, is watched over by ambitious stage mother PEG, who is disdainful of Buster’s low status as a “comedian”. BUSTER is disappointed to learn that NATALIE mirrors her mother’s distaste for sex, as his mentor “FATTY” ARBUCKLE is then falsely accused and ultimately ruined by a sexual scandal. In a flash forward, Buster’s third wife-to-be ELEANOR, while playing bridge at his home, attracts the attention of a muted, middled aged BUSTER, again living at home with family members, after she tells off a fellow player, much as BUSTER had done to a condescending big shot years earlier. Urged on by HOUDINI, the younger BUSTER gets his producer JOE SCHENCK to allow him to make features…

EPISODE THREE - A flash forward finds a drunken, bitter BUSTER smashing up his MGM star bungalow before the younger BUSTER is seen making the first of his classic comedy features. BUSTER casts a newly pregnant NATALIE in a key role in one such film, only to have PEG later inform him that with NATALIE dutifully having given him two children, there will be no more “relations” between the pair. Constantly daydreaming, BUSTER, after an abortive attempt to co-direct with his shell shocked friend ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE, creates his first masterpiece SHERLOCK, JR., wherein he literally jumps into an onscreen motion picture. BUSTER and his top writer/friend CLYDE BRUCKMAN are mutually awestruck by Chaplin’s blockbuster release THE GOLD RUSH. Much to producer JOE SCHENCK’s dismay, and his bitter, competitive father Joe’s displeasure, BUSTER then begins spending lavishly to make THE GENERAL, a meticulously recreated Civil War era train chase comedy, which he co-directs with BRUCKMAN.

EPISODE FOUR - THE GENERAL tanks, and JOE SCHENCK, now being advised by brother NICHOLAS, a head honcho at MGM, quietly makes plans to head the new UNITED ARTISTS for Chaplin, without BUSTER. Devastated by THE GENERAL’s financial failure, CLYDE BRUCKMAN begins a strange working relationship with Buster’s anal rival HAROLD LLOYD. BUSTER suffers the death of HARRY HOUDINI and the disintegration of his writing staff, and eventually, against the advice of CHAPLIN and others, lets NICHOLAS SCHENCK talk him into coming over to MGM. Not used to working from a script, BUSTER quickly finds himself at odds with stern studio head LOUIS B. MAYER, who orders him cut off from his old crew. After repeated attempts to work independently, BUSTER finally gives up and begins drinking excessively and sleeping with a number of starlets. NATALIE discovers him with one such young actress and leaves him. Floating drunk in the pool of his mansion, BUSTER is chastised by father JOE for daring to consider himself an “angel”, a term he uses for creative greats.

EPISODE FIVE - A flash forward to the 1950s shows the actor JAMES MASON discovering a VAULT full of FILM PRINTS on the grounds of Buster’s old estate. Jumping back to 1932, BUSTER, still at MGM, finds himself assigned nurse MAE SCRIVENS, whose task is to control his drinking. Jumping forward, we see forty year old BUSTER begin dating twenty year old ELEANOR, who reacts enthusiastically to everything NATALIE has not. ELEANOR queries both BUSTER and mother MYRA about the past and learns that BUSTER was forced to undergo horrid “aversion therapy” anti-drinking campaigns before marrying MAE and being fired by MGM. The delusional Mae flees after Buster begins an affair with notorious “sexologist” LEAH CLAMPITT SEWELL, after which BUSTER is committed to a sanitarium by a desperate MYRA. A sober BUSTER marries ELEANOR, then surprisingly returns to MGM as a lowly story consultant where he advises a number of creatives on the lot, including a struggling LUCILLE BALL, before finding work in the emerging world of TELEVISION. A greater surprise comes in a chance to work with CHAPLIN on the film LIMELIGHT, as he and BUSTER create a classic comedy scene appearing as two aging vaudevillians appearing together for one last time…

EPISODE SIX - Buster suffers the death of mother MYRA, and the suicide of his friend writer CLYDE BRUCKMAN, to whom he has unwittingly loaned a pistol. Attending a revival showing of his comedy THE GENERAL with ELEANOR, BUSTER is amazed to find his film rapturously received, then meets shifty theater manager and Keaton freak RAYMOND ROHAUER, who begins pestering the pair to let him become partners with BUSTER and get Buster’s neglected films found and re-released. BUSTER, increasingly financially comfortable from television work and from the production of SIDNEY SHELDON’S appalling and fictitious biopic THE BUSTER KEATON STORY, is apathetic, until a frustrated ELEANOR, fearful that Buster is allowing his legacy to slip away, leaves him briefly. BUSTER relents and shares a happy reunion with ELEANOR, before ROHAUER is allowed to spring into action. Eventually, he organizes a surprise tribute to BUSTER at the Venice Film Festival of 1966, an event foreshadowed in Episode One. Finally bedridden by lung cancer, an addled BUSTER is beckoned to by HOUDINI, and ELEANOR, at his bedside, sadly urges him to join his friend. A final crawl informs us Buster’s THE GENERAL was recently ranked ahead of Chaplin’s THE GOLD RUSH in an AFI list of the greatest feature comedies ever made.