"Big Joe" Roberts, as he was known in vaudeville, toured the country with his first wife, Lillian Stuart Roberts as part of a rowdy act known as Roberts, Hays, and Roberts. Their signature routine was called "The Cowboy, the Swell and the Lady." At this time, in the first decade of the twentieth century, Buster Keaton's father, Joe Keaton, had started a summer Actors' Colony for vaudevillians between Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake in Michigan. Roberts became acquainted with the Keaton family as a member of this community.
When Buster Keaton's film apprenticeship years with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle came to an end, and Keaton began making his own shorts in 1920, he asked Roberts to join him. Roberts' hefty 6'3" frame, usually playing a menacing heavy or authority figure, made a striking and amusing contrast to the thin, 5'6" Keaton.
IMDB shows that Roberts made only two films without Keaton. He played the role of "Roaring Bill" Rivers in 1922's The Primitive Lover starring Constance Talmadge—Keaton's sister-in-law—and the silent film actor Harrison Ford; and a drill master in the Clyde Cook comedy The Misfit,[4] released in March 1924, after Roberts' death.
When Keaton began making feature films in 1923, he apparently intended to continue working with Roberts. Roberts had roles in Keaton's Three Ages and Our Hospitality (both 1923). During the filming of the second feature, Roberts had a stroke but insisted on returning to the set to finish the film. After completion, Roberts suffered another stroke and died shortly afterwards.
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A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbr...
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Upon waking from the dream of a theater peopled entirely by numerous Buster Keatons, a lowly stage h...
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Buster is thrown off a train near an amusement park. There he gets a job in a shooting gallery run b...
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A bank teller becomes involved with a hold-up, counterfeiters and a theatrical troupe posing as spoo...
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Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home....
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Buster clowns around in a blacksmith's shop until he and the smithy get in a fight which sends the s...
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A butterfly collector unwittingly wanders into an Indian encampment while chasing a butterfly, but t...
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A mix of guns and mistaken identity leads to chaos in this satirical parody of William S. Hart's mel...
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Buster and a woman are mistakenly married and her initially unfriendly family begins to treat him ni...
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In order to impress the father of a girl he is keen on, a young man goes to the city in search of wo...
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A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to ki...
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In an attempt to forget his lost sweetheart, Buster takes a long trip at the sea when he's caught by...
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The rituals of courtship, romantic rivalry, and love play out three times as a man vies with a villa...
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Recent movies
| # | Name | Character | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Our Hospitality (1923) | Joseph Canfield | 7 | |
| 2 | The Love Nest (1923) | Captain of the Whaler | 5.5 | |
| 3 | Three Ages (1923) | The Girl's Father | 7 | |
| 4 | The Electric House (1922) | Millionaire | 7.3 | |
| 5 | Cops (1922) | Police Chief (uncredited) | 7.3 | |
| 6 | The Blacksmith (1922) | Blacksmith | 5.5 | |
| 7 | The Paleface (1922) | The Indian Chief | 6 | |
| 8 | The Frozen North (1922) | The Driver | 6 | |
| 9 | My Wife's Relations (1922) | Brother | 5.5 | |
| 10 | Day Dreams (1922) | The Mayor | 6 | |
| 11 | Hard Luck (1921) | Lizard Lip Luke | 6.7 | |
| 12 | The Play House (1921) | Actor / Stage Manager (uncredited) | 7 | |
| 13 | The High Sign (1921) | Leader of Buzzards | 4 | |
| 14 | The Haunted House (1921) | Bank Cashier | 6 | |
| 15 | The Goat (1921) | Police Chief | 5 | |
| 16 | Convict 13 (1920) | The Crazed Prisoner | 6 | |
| 17 | One Week (1920) | Piano Mover (uncredited) | 8.7 | |
| 18 | Neighbors (1920) | Her Father (uncredited) | 7.8 | |
| 19 | The Scarecrow (1920) | Farmhand (uncredited) | 7.5 |
