Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American film actor. He was known for films such as From Here to Eternity, Trapeze, Elmer Gantry and Birdman from Alcatraz.
==Early life==
Lancaster was born in New York City in 1913 and was raised in East Harlem. His parents were strict Protestants, and all of his grandparents emigrated to the US from present-day Northern Ireland. Lancaster initially pursued a career in the circus; he was a highly skilled acrobat and formed a performing partnership with lifelong friend Nick Cravat. A crippling injury in 1939, however, ended Lancaster's circus aspirations and he took a number of jobs to support himself until being drafted into the US Army in 1943. There, he performed in USO shows to lift troops' morale, bringing him into contact with acting for the first time.
Upon his return to NYC, Lancaster was persuaded to take up acting full-time and won a role in a Broadway play, A Sound of Hunting. Hollywood agent Harold Hecht attended one performance and offered Lancaster a film career, with the promise that, after a number of years, they could move up to producing their own projects. The young actor agreed and signed a personal contract with prolific producer Hal B. Wallis.
==Career==
Lancaster's first filmed performance was in Desert Fury (1947), but his first released film was The Killers (1946), a classic film noir. The film was a smash success and launched Lancaster and his co-star Ava Gardner into prominence. For the remainder of the 1940s Lancaster would feature in films produced by Wallis, as per the original contract.
Lancaster and Hecht formed their production company in 1948, initially naming it Norma Productions (after Lancaster's wife), but changing it in 1951 to Hecht-Lancaster Productions and finally Hecht-Hill-Lancaster when writer James Hill joined the partnership in 1955. The company produced a number of highly successful films, some of which Lancaster did not act in. The most notable of these was the drama Marty (1955), which won the Best Picture Oscar. Lancaster experimented with directing by making The Kentuckian (1955), but he did not enjoy the experience.
After showing off his incredible physique by playing in the swashbuckler hit The Crimson Pirate (1952), Lancaster was cast as an army officer who begins an illicit affair in the multi-Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953); his love scene with Deborah Kerr on a Hawaiian beach with waves crashing around them has become iconic, and Lancaster received his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Quality roles followed throughout the next decade; he shined as a circus master in Trapeze (1956) (where he used his acrobatic skills for risky stunts), a ruthless newspaper owner in Sweet Smell of Success (1957), a jaded lover in Separate Tables (1958), a biblical con-man in Elmer Gantry (1960) which won him the Best Actor Oscar, a war criminal standing trial in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), criminal-turned-bird expert Robert Stroud in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) (his third Oscar nomination), and a prince in the Italian film The Leopard (1963).
Lancaster remained prolific throughout the 1960s and 1970s despite his career going into decline, and his only significant hits from that period were the Western The Professionals (1966) and the quintessential disaster film, Airport (1970). He experienced a resurgence in his popularity with his acclaimed performance as a past-his-prime gangster in Atlantic City (1980), which garnered him his fourth and last Oscar nomination. Afterwards he played more character parts, such as an oil company representative in Local Hero (1983) and an elderly doctor who had a brief attempt at baseball in Field of Dreams (1989), his final film.
Outside of film-making, Lancaster was an active supporter of liberal political and health causes. He was a heavy critic of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, and promoted civil and human rights. He fought against Communist blacklisting early in his career, and sought to remove the stigma around AIDS after Rock Hudson fell ill with the disease.
Lancaster's health began to deteriorate in the early 1980s. He survived a pair of heart attacks and almost lost his life during a gallbladder surgery gone wrong in 1980. However, he remained active until 1990, when he suffered a large stroke which partially paralyzed him and severely reduced his speech, forcing him into retirement. Lancaster died of another heart attack in his LA apartment in 1994, aged 80.
The American Film Institute ranked Lancaster 19th in its list of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
==Filmography==
* The Killers (1946) as Ole "Swede" Anderson (film debut)
* Brute Force (1947) as Joe Collins
* Desert Fury (1947) as Tom Hanson
* Variety Girl (1947) as Himself
* I Walk Alone (1948) as Frankie Madison
* All My Sons (1948) as Chris Keller
* Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) as Henry Stevenson
* Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) as William Earle Saunders
* Criss Cross (1949) as Steve Thompson
* Rope of Sand (1949) as Michael Davis
* The Flame and the Arrow (1950) as Dardi Bartoli
* Mister 880 (1950) as Steve Buchanan
* Vengeance Valley (1951) as Owen Daybright
* Jim Thorpe - All-American (1951) as Jim Thorpe
* Ten Tall Men (1951) as Sgt. Mike Kincaid
* The Crimson Pirate (1952) as Capt. Vallo
* Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) as Doc Delaney
* South Sea Woman (1953) as James O'Hearn
* From Here to Eternity (1953) as 1st Sgt. Milton Warden (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor)
* Three Sailors and a Girl (1953) as Marine (uncredited)
* His Majesty O'Keefe (1954) as Daniel O'Keefe/Narrator
* Apache (1954) as Massai
* Vera Cruz (1954) as Joe Erin
* The Kentuckian (1955) as Elias Wakefield (also director)
* The Rose Tattoo (1955) as Alvaro
* Trapeze (1956) as Mike Ribble
* The Rainmaker (1956) as Bill Starbuck
* Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) as Wyatt Earp
* Sweet Smell of Success (1957) as J. J. Hunsecker
* Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) as Lt. Cmdr. Jim Bledsoe
* Separate Tables (1958) as John Malcolm
* The Devil's Disciple (1959) as Rev. Anthony Anderson
* The Unforgiven (1960) as Ben Zachary
* Elmer Gantry (1960) as Elmer Gantry (winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor)
* The Young Savages (1961) as Hank Bell
* Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) as Ernst Janning
* Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) as Robert Stroud (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor)
* A Child Is Waiting (1963) as Dr. Matthew Clark
* The Leopard (1963) as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina
* The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) as Animal rights protester
* Seven Days in May (1964) as General James Scott
* The Train (1965) as John Labiche
* The Hallelujah Trail (1965) as Thaddeus Gearhart
* The Professionals (1966) as Bill Dolworth
* The Scalphunters (1968) as Joe Bass
* The Swimmer (1968) as Ned Merrill
* Jenny Is a Good Thing (1969) as Narrator
* Castle Keep (1969) as Maj. Abraham Falconer
* The Gypsy Moths (1969) as Mike Rettig
* Airport (1970) as Mel Bakersfield
* Lawman (1971) as Jared Maddox
* Valdez Is Coming (1971) as Marshal Bob Valdez
* Ulzana's Raid (1972) as McIntosh
* Scorpio (1973) as Cross
* Executive Action (1973) as James Farrington
* The Midnight Man (1974) as Jim Slade (also co-director)
* Conversation Piece (1974) as The Professor
* 1900 (1976) as Alfredo Berlinghieri the Elder
* Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) as Ned Buntline
* The Cassandra Crossing (1976) as Col. Stephen Mackenzie
* Twilight's Last Gleaning (1977) as Lawrence Dell
* The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) as Dr. Paul Moreau
* Go Tell the Spartans (1978) as Major Asa Barker
* Zulu Dawn (1979) as Col. Anthony Durnford
* Atlantic City (1980) as Lou Pascal (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor)
* Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981) as Bill Doolin
* The Skin (1981) as General Mark Cork
* Local Hero (1983) as Happer
* The Osterman Weekend (1983) as Maxwell Danforth
* Little Treasure (1985) as Delbert Teschemacher
* Tough Guys (1986) as Harry Doyle
* Control (1987) as Dr. Herbert Monroe
* Rocket Gibraltar (1988) as Levi Rockwell
* The Jeweler's Shop (1988) as The Jeweler
* Field of Dreams (1989) as Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (final film role)
==External links==
*Burt Lancaster on Wikipedia 
*Genealogy of Burt Lancaster
Category:1913 births
Category:1994 deaths
Category:20th-century American male actors
Category:American actors
Category:Actors
Category:Producers