page_title: Burl Ives
section_title: 1950s–1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Burl Ives / Life and career / 1950s–1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Screenshot of Burl Ives and Paul Newman from the trailer for the film w:en:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (film)
context_page_description: Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television.
  Ives began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, and then became a major star of CBS radio.
  In the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". A popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s, Ives's best-known film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, as well as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
  Ives is often remembered for his voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which continues to air annually around Christmas.
context_section_description: Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet Red Channels and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952, he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and agreed to testify, fearful of losing his source of income. Ives' statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies, but it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Pete Seeger, who accused Ives of naming names and betraying the cause of cultural and political freedom to save his own career. Forty-one years later, Ives, by then using a wheelchair, reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City, having reconciled years earlier. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together.
  Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, California, in East of Eden, Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, roles in Desire Under the Elms, Wind Across the Everglades, The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Ensign Pulver, the sequel to Mister Roberts, and Our Man in Havana, based on the Graham Greene novel.
  He was the Mystery Guest on the August 7, 1955 and February 1, 1959 episodes of What's My Line.
caption: Ives (left) with Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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