Burt Lancaster

Movie Actor

Burt Lancaster was born in New York City, New York, United States on November 2nd, 1913 and is the Movie Actor. At the age of 80, Burt Lancaster biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, movies, and networth are available.

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Other Names / Nick Names
Burton Stephen Lancaster
Date of Birth
November 2, 1913
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
New York City, New York, United States
Death Date
Oct 20, 1994 (age 80)
Zodiac Sign
Scorpio
Networth
$10 Million
Profession
Circus Performer, Film Actor, Film Director, Film Producer, Screenwriter, Stage Actor, Television Actor
Burt Lancaster Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 80 years old, Burt Lancaster has this physical status:

Height
188cm
Weight
Not Available
Hair Color
Blonde
Eye Color
Blue
Build
Athletic
Measurements
Not Available
Burt Lancaster Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Protestant
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
DeWitt Clinton High School, Bronx, NY (1930)
Burt Lancaster Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
June Ernst, ​ ​(m. 1935; div. 1946)​, Norma Anderson, ​ ​(m. 1946; div. 1969)​, Susan Martin, ​ ​(m. 1990)​
Children
5; including Bill
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Elizabeth Roberts, James Henry Lancaster
Burt Lancaster Career

At the age of 9, Lancaster met Nick Cravat with whom he developed a lifelong partnership. Together, they learned to act in local theatre productions and circus arts at Union Settlement, one of the city's oldest settlement houses. In the 1930s, they formed the acrobat duo Lang and Cravat and soon joined the Kay Brothers circus. However, in 1939, an injury forced Lancaster to give up the profession, with great regret. He then found temporary work, first as a salesman for Marshall Fields and then as a singing waiter in various restaurants.

Acting career

Lancaster returned to New York after his Army service. Although initially unenthusiastic about acting, Lancaster was encouraged to audition for a Broadway play by a producer who saw him in an elevator while he was visiting his then-girlfriend at work. The audition was successful and Lancaster was cast in Harry Brown's A Sound of Hunting (1945). The show only ran three weeks, but his performance attracted the interest of a Hollywood agent, Harold Hecht. Lancaster had other offers but Hecht promised him the opportunity to produce their own movies within five years of hitting Hollywood.

Through Hecht, Lancaster was brought to the attention of producer Hal B. Wallis, who signed him to a non-exclusive eight-movie contract.

Lancaster's first filmed movie was Desert Fury for Wallis in 1947, where Lancaster was billed after John Hodiak and Lizabeth Scott. It was directed by Lewis Allen.

Then producer Mark Hellinger approached him to star in 1946's The Killers, which was completed and released prior to Desert Fury. Directed by Robert Siodmak, it was a great commercial and critical success and launched Lancaster and his co-star Ava Gardner to stardom. It has since come to be regarded as a classic.

Hellinger used Lancaster again on Brute Force in 1947, a prison drama written by Richard Brooks and directed by Jules Dassin. It was also well received. Wallis released his films through Paramount, and so Lancaster and other Wallis contractees made cameos in Variety Girl in 1947.

Lancaster's next film was a thriller for Wallis in 1947, I Walk Alone, co-starring Lizabeth Scott and a young Kirk Douglas, who was also under contract to Wallis. Variety listed it as one of the top grossers of the year, taking in more than 2 million dollars.

In 1948, Lancaster had a change of pace with the film adaptation of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, made at Universal Pictures with Edward G. Robinson. His third film for Wallis was an adaptation of Sorry, Wrong Number in 1948, with Barbara Stanwyck.

Hecht kept to his promise to Lancaster to turn producer. The two of them formed a company, Norma Productions, and did a deal with Universal to make a thriller about a disturbed G.I. in London, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands in 1948, with Joan Fontaine and directed by Norman Foster. It made a profit of only $50,000, but was critically acclaimed.

Back in Hollywood, Lancaster made another film noir with Siodmak, Criss Cross, in 1949. It was originally going to be produced by Hellinger and when Hellinger died, another took over. Tony Curtis made an early appearance.

Lancaster appeared in a fourth picture for Wallis, Rope of Sand, in 1949.

Norma Productions signed a three-picture deal with Warner Bros. The first was 1950's The Flame and the Arrow, a swashbuckler movie, in which Lancaster drew on his circus skills. Nick Cravat had a supporting role and the film was a huge commercial success, making $6 million. It was Warners' most popular film of the year and established an entirely new image for Lancaster.

Lancaster was borrowed by 20th Century Fox for Mister 880 in 1950, a comedy with Edmund Gwenn. MGM put him in a popular Western, Vengeance Valley in 1951, then he went to Warners to play the title role in the biopic Jim Thorpe – All-American, also in 1951.

Norma signed a deal with Columbia Pictures to make two films through a Norma subsidiary, Halburt. The first film was 1951's Ten Tall Men, where Lancaster was a member of the French Foreign Legion. Robert Aldrich worked on the movie as a production manager.

The second was 1952's The First Time, a comedy which was the directorial debut of Frank Tashlin. It was meant to star Lancaster but he wound up not appearing in the film—the first of their productions in which he did not act.

In 1951, the actor/producer duo changed the company's name to Hecht-Lancaster Productions. The first film under the new name was another swashbuckler: 1952's The Crimson Pirate, directed by Siodmak. Co-starring Cravat, it was extremely popular.

Lancaster changed pace once more by doing a straight dramatic part in 1952's Come Back, Little Sheba, based on a Broadway hit, with Shirley Booth, produced by Wallis and directed by Daniel Mann.

Alternating with adventure films, he went into South Sea Woman in 1952 at Warners. Part of the Norma-Warners contract was that Lancaster had to appear in some non-Norma films, of which this was one.

In 1954, for his own company, Lancaster produced and starred in His Majesty O'Keefe, a South Sea island tale shot in Fiji. It was co-written by James Hill, who would soon become a part of the Hecht-Lancaster partnership.

Hecht and Lancaster left Warners for United Artists, for what began as a two-picture deal, the first of which was to be 1954's Apache, starring Lancaster as a Native American.

They followed it with another Western in 1954, Vera Cruz, co-starring Gary Cooper and produced by Hill. Both films were directed by Robert Aldrich and were hugely popular.

United Artists signed Hecht-Lancaster to a multi-picture contract, to make seven films over two years. These included films in which Lancaster did not act. Their first was Marty in 1955, based on Paddy Chayefsky's TV play starring Ernest Borgnine and directed by Delbert Mann. It won both the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme d'Or award at Cannes and Borgnine an Best Actor Oscar. It also earned $2 million on a budget of $350,000. Vera Cruz had been a huge success, but Marty secured Hecht-Lancaster as one of the most successful independent production companies in Hollywood at the time. Marty star Ernest Borgnine was under contract to Hecht-Lancaster and was unhappy about his lack of upcoming roles, especially after only receiving some seven lines in 1957's Sweet Smell of Success and half of his pay for Marty. He eventually sued for breach of contract to gain back some of this money in 1957.

Without Hill, Hecht and Lancaster produced The Kentuckian in 1955; it was directed by Lancaster in his directorial debut, and he also played a lead role. Lancaster disliked directing and only did it once more, in the 1970s (The Midnight Man, 1974).

Lancaster still had commitments with Wallis, and made The Rose Tattoo for him in 1955, starring with Anna Magnani and Daniel Mann directing. It was very popular at the box office and critically acclaimed, winning Magnani an Oscar.

In 1955, Hill was made an equal partner in Hecht-Lancaster, with his name added to the production company. Hecht-Hill-Lancaster (HHL) released their first film Trapeze in 1956, with Lancaster performing many of his own stunts. The film, co-starring Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida, went on to become the production company's top box office success, and United Artists expanded its deal with HHL.

In 1956, Lancaster and Hecht partnered with Loring Buzzell and entered the music industry with the music publishing companies Leigh Music, Hecht-Lancaster & Buzzell Music, Calyork Music and Colby Music and the record labels Calyork Records and Maine Records.

The HHL team impressed Hollywood with its success; as Life wrote in 1957, "[a]fter the independent production of a baker's dozen of pictures, it has yet to have its first flop ... (They were also good pictures.)." In late 1957, they announced they would make ten films worth $14 million in 1958.

Lancaster made two films for Wallis to complete his eight film commitment for that contract: The Rainmaker (1956) with Katharine Hepburn, which earned Lancaster a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor; and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) with Kirk Douglas, which was a huge commercial hit directed by John Sturges.

Lancaster re-teamed with Tony Curtis in 1957 for Sweet Smell of Success, a co-production between Hecht-Hill-Lancaster and Curtis' own company with wife Janet Leigh, Curtleigh Productions. The movie, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, was a critical success but a commercial disappointment. Over the years it has come to be regarded as one of Lancaster's greatest films.

HHL produced seven additional films in the late 1950s. Four starred Lancaster: Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), a Robert Wise directed war film with Clark Gable, which was mildly popular; Separate Tables (1958) a hotel-set drama with Kerr and Rita Hayworth (who married James Hill), which received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and Oscar awards for lead actor David Niven and supporting actress Wendy Hiller, and was both a critical and commercial success; The Devil's Disciple (1959), with Douglas and Laurence Olivier, which lost money (and saw Lancaster fire Mackendrick during shooting); and the Western The Unforgiven (1960), with Audrey Hepburn, which was a critical and commercial disappointment.

Three were made without Lancaster, all of which lost money: The Bachelor Party (1957), from another TV play by Chayefsky, and directed by Delbert Mann; Take a Giant Step (1959), about a black student; and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1960), from an Australian play, shot on location in Australia and Britain.

Additionally, HHL served as the production company for the 1960–61 TV series Whiplash.

The Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions company dissolved in 1960 after Hill ruptured his relationship with both Hecht and Lancaster.

Lancaster played the title role in Elmer Gantry (1960), written and directed by Richard Brooks for United Artists. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Lancaster won the 1960 Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe Award, and the New York Film Critics Award for his performance.

Hecht and Lancaster worked together on The Young Savages (1961), directed by John Frankenheimer and produced by Hecht. Sydney Pollack worked as a dialogue coach.

Lancaster starred in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) for Stanley Kramer, alongside Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark and a number of other iconic stars. The film was both a commercial and critical success, receiving 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

He then did another film with Hecht and Frankenheimer (replacing Charles Crichton), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), a largely fictionalized biography. In it he plays Robert Stroud, a federal prisoner incarcerated for life for two murders, who begins to collect birds and over time becomes an expert in bird diseases, even publishing a book. The film shows Stroud transferred to the maximum security Alcatraz prison where he is not allowed to keep birds and as he ages he gets married, markets bird remedies, helps stop a prison rebellion, and writes a book on the history of the U.S. penal system, but never gets paroled. The sympathetic performance earned Lancaster a Best Actor Oscar nomination, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Dramatic Role. Hecht went on to produce five films without Lancaster's assistance, through his company Harold Hecht Films Productions between 1961 and 1967, including another Academy Award winner, Cat Ballou, starring Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda.

Lancaster made A Child Is Waiting (1963) with Judy Garland. It was produced by Kramer and directed by John Cassavetes.

He went to Italy to star in The Leopard (1963) for Luchino Visconti, co-starring Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. It was one of Lancaster's favourite films and was a big hit in France but failed in the US (though the version released was much truncated).

He had a small role in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) for producer/star Kirk Douglas, and then did two for Frankenheimer: Seven Days in May (1964), a political thriller with Douglas, and The Train (1964), a World War Two action film (Lancaster had Frankenheimer replace Arthur Penn several days into filming).

Lancaster starred in The Hallelujah Trail (1965), a comic Western produced and directed by John Sturges which failed to recoup its large cost.

He had a big hit with The Professionals (1966), a Western directed by Brooks and also starring Lee Marvin.

In 1966, at the age of 52, Lancaster appeared nude in director Frank Perry's film The Swimmer (1968), in what the critic Roger Ebert called "his finest performance". Prior to working on The Swimmer, Lancaster was terrified of the water because he did not know how to swim. In preparation for the film, he took swimming lessons from UCLA swim coach Bob Horn. Filming was difficult and clashes between Lancaster and Perry led to Sydney Pollack coming in to do some filming. The film was not released until 1968, when it proved to be a commercial failure, though Lancaster remained proud of the movie and his performance.

In 1967, Lancaster formed a new partnership with Roland Kibbee, who had already worked as a writer on five Lancaster projects:

Through Norlan Productions, Lancaster and Kibbee produced The Scalphunters in 1968, directed by Sydney Pollack.

Lancaster followed it with another film from Pollack, Castle Keep in 1969, which was a big flop. So was The Gypsy Moths, for Frankenheimer, also in 1969.

Lancaster had one of the biggest successes of his career with Airport in 1970, starring alongside Dean Martin, George Kennedy, Van Heflin, Helen Hayes, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Hale, Jean Seberg and Jacqueline Bisset. The Ross Hunter film received nine Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. It became one of the biggest box-office hits of 1970 and, at that time, reportedly the highest-grossing film in the history of Universal Pictures.

He then went into a series of Westerns: Lawman in 1971, directed by Michael Winner; Valdez Is Coming in 1971, for Norlan; and Ulzana's Raid in 1972, directed by Aldrich and produced by himself and Hecht. None were particularly popular but Ulzana's Raid has become a cult film.

Lancaster did two thrillers, both 1973: Scorpio with Winner and Executive Action.

Lancaster returned to directing in 1974 with The Midnight Man, which he also wrote and produced with Kibee.

He made a second film with Visconti, Conversation Piece in 1974 and played the title role in the TV series Moses the Lawgiver, also in 1974.

Lancaster was one of many names in 1975's 1900, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, and he had a cameo in 1976's Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson for Robert Altman.

He played Shimon Peres in the TV movie Victory at Entebbe in 1977 and had a supporting role in The Cassandra Crossing in 1976. He made a fourth and final film with Aldrich, Twilight's Last Gleaming in 1977, and had the title role in 1977's The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Lancaster was top-billed in Go Tell the Spartans in 1978, a Vietnam War film; Lancaster admired the script so much that he took a reduced fee and donated money to help the movie to be completed. He was in Zulu Dawn in 1979.

Lancaster began the 1980s with a highly acclaimed performance alongside Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City in 1980, directed by Louis Malle. The film received 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Actor nomination for Lancaster.

He had key roles in Cattle Annie and Little Britches in 1981, The Skin in 1982 with Cardinale, Marco Polo, also in 1982, and Local Hero in 1983.

By now, Lancaster was mostly a character actor in features, as in The Osterman Weekend in 1983, but he was the lead in the TV movie Scandal Sheet in 1985.

He was in Little Treasure in 1985, directed by Alan Sharp, who had written Ulzana's Raid; On Wings of Eagles for TV in 1986, as Bull Simons; 1986's made for TV Barnum starred him in the title role; Tough Guys reunited him on the big screen with Kirk Douglas in 1986; Fathers and Sons: A German Tragedy in 1986 for German TV; 1987's Control made in Italy; Rocket Gibraltar in 1988, and The Jeweller's Shop in 1989.

His first critical success in a while was Field of Dreams in 1989, in which he played a supporting role as Moonlight Graham. He was also in the miniseries The Betrothed in 1989.

Lancaster's final performances included TV miniseries The Phantom of the Opera (1990); Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair (1990) as Leon Klinghoffer based on the 1985 MS Achille Lauro incident; and Separate But Equal (1991) with Sidney Poitier.

Lancaster appeared in a total of 17 films produced by his agent, Harold Hecht. Eight of these were co-produced by James Hill. He also appeared in eight films produced by Hal B. Wallis and two with producer Mark Hellinger. Although Lancaster's work alongside Kirk Douglas was mostly known as a successful pair of actors, Douglas, in fact, produced four films for the pair, through his production companies Bryna Productions and Joel Productions. Roland Kibbee also produced three Lancaster films, and Lancaster was also cast in two Stanley Kramer productions.

Kirk Douglas starred in seven films across the decades with Burt Lancaster: I Walk Alone (1948), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Devil's Disciple (1959), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), Victory at Entebbe (1976) and Tough Guys (1986), which fixed the notion of the pair as something of a team in the public imagination. Douglas was always billed under Lancaster in these movies but, with the exception of I Walk Alone, in which Douglas played a villain, their roles were usually more or less the same size. Both actors arrived in Hollywood at about the same time, and first appeared together in the fourth film for each, albeit with Douglas in a supporting role. They both became actor-producers who sought out independent Hollywood careers.

John Frankenheimer directed five films with Lancaster:

He was directed four times by Robert Aldrich, three times each by Robert Siodmak and Sydney Pollack, and twice each by Byron Haskin, Daniel Mann, John Sturges, John Huston, Richard Brooks, Alexander Mackendrick, Luchino Visconti, and Michael Winner.

Roland Kibbee wrote for seven Lancaster films. Lancaster used makeup veteran Robert Schiffer in 20 credited films, hiring Schiffer on nearly all of the films he produced.

Source

Photographer Robert Doisneau photographed young Parisienne Sophie Coisneau kissing her lover in a crowded street in 1950. She died at the age of 93

www.dailymail.co.uk, January 3, 2024
In a clinch with her lover Jacques Carteaud, what became Le baiser de ville (Kiss by the City Hall) showed young Parisienne Francoise Delbart and her lover Jacques Carteaud. The photograph was taken by photographer Robert Doisneau (inset), as France was recovering from the Second World War's horrors. Ms Delbart, whose married name was Bornet, died on Christmas Day at the age of 93, more than 70 years later. Doisneau, who became well-known for his chronicling of Paris street life, had first noticed a pair of drama students embracing in a Left Bank cafe in April 1950. Ms Delbart's most popular picture taken in 2005 was taken in the same location as Ms Delbart's.

Janet Landgard, actress who appeared in The Swimmer and The Donna Reed Show, dies at 75 after brief brain cancer battle

www.dailymail.co.uk, November 11, 2023
Janet Landgard, a actress who appeared in Burt Lancaster's 1968 film The Swimmer, has died at the age of 75. Landgard died on Monday, November 6, following a brief battle with brain cancer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The actress Paul Petersen, who appeared on Landgard on ABC's The Donna Reed Show, has confirmed the news.

George Rossi, a TV legend, amassed a multi-million dollar empire before he died

www.dailymail.co.uk, April 9, 2023
EXCLUSIVE: George (left), 60, who starred Duncan Lennox in the hit series for 20 years, died of pancreatic cancer in January 2022. Although the £8,059,966.67 'gross value' of his estate made the news, he left only £3,660,996.36 after his debts and bills were subtracted, some of which may have been paid in the form of outstanding buy-to-let mortgages. The fortune he earned was left to his widow Catrin, who said, 'George was a wonderful person at the time of his death.' Both their two children prospered. A photograph of how he expanded the tiny property empire that steadily increased in value by renting out and reinvesting the money in more bricks and mortar is now available - a representation of his international success.