Buster and his Mash Notes – originally published in Pantomime magazine, October 12, 1921
YOU know, of course, that Buster Keaton — he of the dour visage who makes you laugh because he’s so gosh-hanged solemn looking (they call him the man who never smiles) — is married to one of the Talmadge girls, and consequently hasn’t any legitimate excuse for wanting to get mash notes. But he does.
And the tough part of it is, that while the girls in the audience all admit Buster is “perfectly splendid ” they don’t sit down and pour out their souls to him on paper. As a matter of fact, all last week, Buster’s mail consisted of one solitary letter — and that was from a man asking him if he had indigestion. The picture to the left shows Buster reading that letter.
Now it so happens that news of the letter got out, in the studio, and they began to kid the sad-faced comedian. So Buster decided to sec to it that he got as much mail as the next one. The picture to t h e right shows how he did it.
The answer is simple. He hired a stenographer and dictated a bag full of letter to himself.