Robert Keaton is the older brother of Steven Keaton.
Background[]
Robert grew up in Buffalo, New York. He's about three years older than Steven.[2] He had a better relationship with Jacob Keaton than Steven did. The brothers still hold grudges against each other over childhood incidents - Robert stole Steven's Joe DiMaggio card, and Steven gave Robert's new bike to an orphanage.[3] Robert also liked to play "Old Shep" to make Steven cry.[4] However, Robert did help Steven get onto the baseball team with the ninth graders when he was in fourth grade. Robert says that when Steven was a teenager, he became sanctimonious and started telling the rest of the family that their values were wrong.[5]
As an adult, Robert stayed in Buffalo. At his parents' urging, he married Maureen Keaton in the early 1960s at age twenty and moved straight from his childhood home to his new place with Maureen.[6] Early in their marriage, they lived in an apartment over Gianfranco's Bakery.[7] Parental pressure also led Robert to become a CPA even though he hated numbers and to have two kids, Marilyn and Jonathan.[8]
Robert helped Steven and his family by giving them money and baby clothes and by being Steven's accountant.[9] After Jacob died, Robert helped May Keaton by doing her shopping and taking care of her when she was sick.
On the series[]
After the death of Jacob, May wants to sell her house. Robert wants to keep the house on the market for a while so May can get a good deal. Steven wants to sell it as quickly as possible so May can move into the Oaks, where all her friends live. Robert accuses Steven of being careless with May's money, but once Robert talks to May about it, he realizes that she really wants to move into the Oaks right away and that it's worth losing some money to make her happy.
Several years later, Robert was in a meeting with his client Bill Hodges, of Hodges' Oldsmobile. Bill started yelling at Robert about the new tax laws. Robert protested, "I'm not a congressman, I'm an accountant." Uttering those words caused him to have a midlife crisis. He walked out of the meeting and went to the batting range, where he spent several hours and $700 in quarters. Then he went home. When Maureen got home that afternoon, he told her they should split up. Then he left, feeling that continuing to be an accountant would kill him. Over the next two months, he traveled around. He went to his friend Roger's apartment in New York City, then went to Yellowstone, where he slept under the stars. Then he wanted to be in a home again, so he flew to Columbus. On the plane, he met Kathy Brady and asked her out.
In Columbus, Robert pays the Keaton family a visit and breaks the news of his separation from Maureen. That night, Kathy shows up at the house for her date with Robert. Robert and Kathy go dancing in discos almost every night for the next week. Then Maureen shows up, having tracked Robert from Buffalo to New York City to Yellowstone to Columbus. Maureen considers their relationship over, but she wants Robert to pay his bills and deal with all the loose ends he left with his business in Buffalo. Once those problems are solved, Maureen goes back to Buffalo, leaving Robert, who feels for the first time in his life like he has a chance of figuring himself out.
By Father Time: Part 1, Robert has moved back to Buffalo and found employment as an electrical lineman, a job he loves. He and Maureen share custody of their kids. Jonathan spends alternating weeks with each parent. Marilyn, who is old enough to refuse to live with Robert, only sees him for a weekend each month. Robert, Marilyn, and Jonathan spend a weekend with the Keaton family in Columbus. Jonathan seems to have adjusted well enough to the changes in his life, but Marilyn simultaneously is furious at Robert for abandoning the family and desperately wants her father back.
- ↑ He's 45 in O'Brother (1987).
- ↑ In Father Time: Part 2, the brothers reminisce about stealing Jacob's beer when Robert was six and Steven was three.
- ↑ Remembrances of Things Past: Part 2
- ↑ O'Brother: Part 2
- ↑ Remembrances of Things Past: Part 2
- ↑ O'Brother: Part 1
- ↑ Father Time: Part 1
- ↑ O'Brother: Part 1
- ↑ O'Brother: Part 2