Joe Roberts
"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 "The Cowboy, the Swell and the Lady." At this time, the first decade of the twentieth century, Buster Keaton's father, Joe Keaton, had a summer Actors' Colony for vaudevillians between Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake in Michigan, where Roberts got to know the Keaton family.
When Buster's apprenticeship with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle came to an end and Keaton began making his own short films in 1920, he asked Roberts to join him. The hefty 6 ft 3 in (191 cm) Roberts, usually playing a menacing heavy or authority figure, made an amusing contrast next to thin, 5 ft 6 in (168 cm) Keaton.
Roberts played "Roaring Bill" Rivers in 1922's The Primitive Lover starring Keaton's sister-in-law Constance Talmadge and silent film actor Harrison Ford. He also had signed a deal with Fox Films, and played such roles as a drill master in the Clyde Cook comedy The Misfit, released in March 1924, after Roberts' death.
When Keaton began making feature films in 1923, he apparently intended to keep working with Roberts. Roberts had roles in Keaton's Three Ages and Our Hospitality (both 1923).
On August 17, while filming Our Hospitality, Roberts had a stroke. A Wassermann test, ordered by consulting physician Dr. Louis Regan, confirmed a diagnosis of late-onset neurosyphilis, a fatal disease that causes seizures, dementia, and paralysis. Roberts returned – weakened – to finish the film, and would live to attend an October 17, 1923, Glendale preview, but died of a second stroke just after midnight of the following day.
Biography from the Wikipedia article Joe Roberts (actor). Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Recently Updated Shows
Futurama
Futurama follows pizza guy Philip J. Fry, who reawakens in 31st century New New York after a cryonics lab accident. Now part of the Planet Express delivery crew, Fry travels to the farthest reaches of the universe with his robot buddy Bender and cyclopsian love interest Leela, discovering freaky mutants, intergalactic conspiracies and other strange stuff.
X-Men '97
X-Men '97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
Silo
In a ruined and toxic future, thousands live in a giant silo deep underground. After its sheriff breaks a cardinal rule and residents die mysteriously, engineer Juliette starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo.
Reacher
Reacher follows Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator who has just recently entered civilian life. Reacher is a drifter, carrying no phone and the barest of essentials as he travels the country and explores the nation he once served. When Reacher arrives in the small town of Margrave, Georgia, he finds a community grappling with its first homicide in 20 years. The cops immediately arrest him and eyewitnesses claim to place Reacher at the scene of the crime. While he works to prove his innocence, a deep-seated conspiracy begins to emerge, one that will require Reacher's keen mind and hard-hitting fists to deal with. One thing above all is for sure: They picked the wrong guy to take the fall.