"Burt Lancaster! Before he can
pick up an ashtray, he has to discuss his motivation for a couple of
hours." So said Jeanne Moreau, the sultry French actress who co-starred in
1965’s The Train. But to hear his friend Nick Cravet tell it,
Lancaster was not being pompous. He was simply seeking the truth. "He
can’t bear to not know how and why things add up," Cravet said. For movie
fans, Lancaster’s many films and varied roles add up to make him one of Hollywood’s
greatest stars.
Born
November 2, 1913, Burton Lancaster grew up in East Harlem, New York, the
youngest of four children in a family impoverished in everything but love.
"I never felt underprivileged," he said years later. "We ate
well and had a happy home." To help put food on the family’s table, the
growing boy shoveled snow, shined shoes, and sold newspapers, but his favorite
activity was reading, and it would remain so throughout his life.
"Most
people seem to think I’m the kind of guy who shaves with a blowtorch," he
said. "Actually, I’m bookish and worrisome." Earl Holliman, his
co-star in The Rainmaker and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
remembers, "When he wasn’t working, he was reading."
He
also enjoyed the movies, especially the swashbuckling adventures of Douglas
Fairbanks, and he would often imitate the derring-do he saw on the silver
screen in his family’s living room. Acting was not a goal, however. Lancaster
hoped to be an opera singer but the change that puberty made in his voice ended
that dream. By the time he enrolled in New York University, his goal was to be
a gym teacher. But he was bored by school, so he soon took off with pal Nick
Cravet and joined the circus as an acrobat. "It was a great life," he
said of the circus, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942, he exchanged
circus tights for army fatigues.
After
his tour of duty ended, Lancaster was visiting his family in New York when he
was invited to audition for a play, A Sound of Hunting. The production
got good notices but closed after three weeks, but not before the former
acrobat was noticed by Hollywood. He was soon under contract to producer Hal
Wallis.
Lancaster
appeared in three films before 1947’s The Killers, but his starring
top-billed role as the hapless Swede in that film noir based on an Ernest
Hemingway story reached the screen first, and "I woke up a star. It was
terrifying."
Tall
and muscular with wild, wavy hair and a flashing set of teeth that became his
most recognizable feature, the intense 32 year-old made a strong impression,
but it was his early refusal to be typed that really made him unique. The tough
guys of Brute Force and I Walk Alone seemed a natural fit,
but Lancaster campaigned for more diverse roles such as the ambitious husband
of Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number and the alcoholic doctor in
Come Back, Little Sheba, a role coveted by Humphrey Bogart but which
studio politics prevented him from taking. By the time he won praise for that
role, Lancaster had already branched out as a producer, having become one of
the first actors to set up his own production company.
The
first title from the production company he formed with agent Harold Hecht (the
two were later joined by writer Jim Hill) was 1948’s Kiss the Blood Off My
Hands. It was followed by such popular swashbucklers as The Flame and
the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, two films that gave the star
perfect opportunities to show off his acrobatic skills. The company reached a
high point with 1955’s Marty, a low-budget drama starring Ernest Borgnine
based on the Paddy Chayefsky teleplay. A "little film," as the
industry called it, Marty was a powerhouse at the box-office and at the
Oscars where it won the gold in four categories including best picture.
As
an actor, Lancaster reached a high point of his own as Sgt. Milt Warden in Fred
Zinnemann’s 1953 adaptation of James Jones’ best-seller, From Here to
Eternity. The multi-Oscar winning film is almost as famous for having
resurrected the career of Frank Sinatra as it is for the classic love scene on
the beach between Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, but it also brought the star the
first of four Academy Award nominations and the first of three New York Film
Critics Circle Awards as best actor.
Even
on The Killers, Lancaster’s later reputation as "difficult"
was beginning to develop causing producer Mark Hellinger to comment: "That
kid has made one picture and already he knows more than anyone on the
lot." It was no surprise then that he would try his hand at directing.
1955’s The Kentuckian introduced Walter Matthau to film audiences but
Lancaster found directing and acting at the same time an ordeal, one he would
not repeat until the abysmal The Midnight Man nineteen years later.
Returning
to acting, he gave winning performances opposite Anna Magnani in Tennessee
Williams’s The Rose Tattoo and Katherine Hepburn in The Rainmaker.
When starring in a film for his own company, the actor was savvy enough to
boost the film’s box-office potential by often appearing alongside another
heavyweight, so, in Vera Cruz he co-starred with Gary Cooper, in Trapeze
he teamed with Tony Curtis, and in Run Silent, Run Deep, he was
second-billed to Clark Gable. But his most notable co-star was Kirk Douglas.
Lancaster and the dimple-chinned actor had earlier appeared together in 1948’s I
Walk Alone, but it was on 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral that
they became friends.
"He
tries to tell me how to act," Lancaster said. "I try to tell him how
to act...and out of this kind of feuding and fighting and fussing has come a
great respect and mutual love that we’ve gained."
In
the years after playing Wyatt Earp to Douglas’ Doc Holliday, the two stars
would share the screen in The Devil’s Disciple, Seven Days In May,
and Tough Guys, as well as make separate appearances in The List
of Adrian Messenger and the TV film Victory at Entebbe.
It
was in another film released in 1957, however, in which Lancaster gave one of
his most memorable performances. Sweet Smell of Success was not a hit,
but it has acquired cult status due to its compelling depiction of a ruthless
gossip columnist and his eager sycophantic press agent (Tony Curtis). The
Ernest Lehman scripted drama was bolstered by moody black and white photography
that vividly captured the smoky milieu of New York nightlife.
In
1960, the financially struggling Hecht-Hill-Lancaster folded, but the year also
brought Lancaster what many consider his signature role. As Elmer Gantry,
the fire and brimstone evangelist with a weakness for whiskey and women, the
star won the Oscar as best actor of the year. Pointing his finger in defiant
self-righteousness, slashing through the air with a Bible, and leaping about
the stage like the acrobat he once had been, the star was never more electric.
One can’t help but wonder how many of today’s TV evangelists spent more time
studying Lancaster’s performance than they did the Gospel. It was the perfect
merging of an actor and a role. "Some parts you fall into like an old
glove," Lancaster said. "Elmer really wasn’t acting. It was me."
The
Young Savages, the least popular of United Artists’ two juvenile
delinquency films of 1961 (West Side Story was the other), introduced
the star to John Frankenheimer, a director with whom he would make four more
films (Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, The Train,
and The Gypsy Moths). The director described his most frequent star as
one of the few performers "who really know something about
production."
Despite
only one major scene, Lancaster received second billing after Spencer Tracy in
the star studded cast of Judgment at Nuremberg. The actor and co-star
Maximillian Schell apparently had as antagonistic a relationship off-screen as
they did in their respective roles as a defender of the Third Reich and a
prosecutor, but sparks really flew during an appearance on Mike Wallace’s TV
show P.M. Rather than endure the future 60 Minutes reporter’s
questions about his temper, Lancaster stormed out of the studio never to
return.
Things
were equally unpleasant on the Italian set of The Leopard. Cast as the
proud prince of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s best-selling novel primarily
because his name helped director Luchino Visconti obtain financing from 20th
Century Fox, the star eventually won over his reluctant director with what
Claudia Cardinale called his "power...integrity and his
professionalism." The two men became friends and, more than a decade
later, Lancaster appeared in Visconti’s Conversation Piece. In order
to do offbeat projects like The Leopard, as well as the underrated The
Swimmer based on John Cheever’s short story, Lancaster was willing to sign
on for films that even he labeled "junk." That was his verdict
concerning Airport. Patronized by critics, Ross Hunter’s "Grand
Hotel of the air" became 1970’s biggest box-office hit, even winning
an Oscar nomination as best picture.
Perhaps
the lack of challenge represented by such mass appeal entertainment led him
back to the stage. His appearance in a 1971 Los Angeles production of Knickerbocker
Holiday earned him some grudging praise for his rendition of
"September Song," but otherwise the critics were unenthused. That
year, he also recited the alphabet on PBS’s Sesame Street.
The
rest of the decade represented a decline for the aging actor who was
increasingly cast in supporting roles with special billing benefitting his
legendary status, or starring in well-meaning projects that lacked commercial
appeal.
An
ardent supporter of liberal causes and champion of the often controversial
American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.), he was intrigued by the conspiratorial
proposition posed by Executive Action, a seedy looking drama that
suggested a cabal of wealthy businessmen were behind the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy.
Robert
Aldrich’s 1972 western Ulzana’s Raid drew allusions to Vietnam and won
praise from some of the more perceptive critics, but Robert Altman’s Buffalo
Bill and the Indians, in which he appeared as Ned Buntline, the
"creator" of Buffalo Bill (Paul Newman), came and went as quickly as
the bicentennial celebrations that were in full gear when it was released in
July 1976. Robert Aldrich’s 1977 Twilight’s Last Gleaming gave the
star the leading role of a deranged former Air Force officer determined to
expose the truth about Vietnam by threatening nuclear war, but it, too, was a disappointment.
If
his name no longer carried much weight at the box-office, Lancaster was still
in demand and the price for his services was often beyond the budgets of the
filmmakers who wished to hire him. But if Bernardo Bertollucci couldn’t meet
his asking price for 1900, no problem, Lancaster would do it at no
charge. And when the bargain basement budget of Go Tell the Spartans
couldn’t guarantee the film’s completion, the actor signed a check for $150,000
to insure that the film (judged by Newsweek to be "the best movie
yet made about the Vietnam War") would not be abandoned.
With
the start of a new decade, things were looking up for the star. Director Louis
Malle’s first choice for the role of the small-time gangster of 1981’s Atlantic
City was Robert Mitchum, but the lackadaisical actor wasn’t interested.
For Lancaster, it represented a major comeback. In addition to earning him the
British equivalent of the Academy Award, and best actor citations from both the
N.Y. and L.A. film critics, it brought him his fourth Oscar nomination which he
likely would have won if Henry Fonda, who had never won an Oscar, had not been
a sentimental favorite for On Golden Pond.
By
this time, Lancaster, who was becoming active in television with such
mini-series and TV movies as Moses, the Lawgiver and On Wings of
Eagles to his credit, was suffering from health problems. He collapsed on
the set of Cattle Annie and Little Britches in 1980, and underwent
open heart surgery in 1982. He remained active throughout the decade, reuniting
with Kirk Douglas for the slight but amusing Tough Guys, but he was
dismissed from The Old Gringo in 1987 after his heart condition made
him uninsurable. A lawsuit he brought against the company was settled out of
court, and he went on to appear in five more productions, including the popular
Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner, before a massive stroke in 1990
led to his withdrawal from the public eye. On October 20, 1994, at the age of
80, he died of a heart attack.
In
his last role, as John W. Davis, the lawyer who opposed Thurgood Marshall’s
attempt to overturn the Supreme Court decision that made segregation in public
schools legal, he co-starred with Sidney Poitier. During the production of Separate
But Equal, Poitier said of Lancaster, "He’s incredible."
He
was, and, thanks to the miracle of film, he will continue to be.
Brian W. Fairbanks
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