Burt Lancaster was born in New York in 1913 and brought up by working class parents of Irish extraction in East Harlem, honing his athleticism and gymnastic skills on the street. He attended New York University from 1930-32 and immediately after joined a vaudeville circus as an acrobat, touring for seven years before injury forced him into labour work in Chicago. He served in the US army as an entertainer for the war years. His acting break came in a 1946 Broadway play A Sound of Hunting after which he signed a contract with Hal Willis.
Early Films
Success and fame came in 1946 with for his intense role in The Killers as 'The Swede' Anderson, a classic Film Noir scripted by John Huston based on a Hemingway short story, where Lancaster sympathetically plays the 'good guy boxer' who falls into the grasp of the criminal underworld.
In 1948 he first co-starred with Kirk Douglas in I Walk Alone, a partnership that would bear fruit in many future films, playing the slow-burning role of an imprisoned Prohibition runner who, on release from his long sweat in jail, seeks out his wealthy former partner.
From Here to Eternity
Perhaps one of Burt Lancaster's most famous performances in this romantic war drama of 1953. He plays 1st Sergeant Milton Warden, a strong-willed and unbending character mixing brawn with intelligence, a style that would come to characterise Lancaster's career. The movie is famed for its classic love scene in the Hawaii surf between Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. His sultry performance won him a Best Actor award from the NYFC as well as a nomination from the Academy Awards.
Sweet Smell of Success
This brash, jazzy 1957 classic was an undisputed tour de force from Lancaster and Tony Curtis, a dynamic pairing in this 1950's Manhattan film noir. Lancaster plays the ruthless newspaper columnist J J Hunsecker who is conned into destroying the career of his sister's boyfriend for the sake of a few column inches. The bespectacled Lancaster pulls off a deeply unnerving performance as the cold-hearted journalist amidst the cut-throat glam and noise of 50's Manhattan.
Gunfight at the OK Corral
This 1957 western suited Lancaster's physical exterior. Teaming up with Kirk Douglas in this classic western based on the true-life gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona (1881), Burt Lancaster plays the cerebral sheriff Wyatt Earp. Kirk Douglas partners Lancaster as the brash but talented gunslinger Doc Holliday, a successful stage-pairing which was mirrored in other classic films such as I Walk Alone, Devil's Disciple and the 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May.
Run Silent Run Deep
Lancaster was perfect for war films, exhibiting a steely patriotic style cool under pressure. This was exhibited to fine effect in this 1958 submarine movie which partnered Lancaster with leading man Clark Gable. Lancaster overshadows Gable with a subtle performance as the pressured but creative-thinking Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe.
Elmer Gantry
This 1960 film won Lancaster an Academy Award for best actor. He teams up with Jean Simmons to play a disreputable evangelical preacher Elmer Gantry, conning money out of folks' souls and spitting hellfire from the pulpit. On being outed and humiliated for his deceptions, Elmer returns to the bible to seek his own salvation.
Birdman of Alcatraz
Lancaster reprises his prisoner role from earlier films in this 1962 biopic. He sensitively portrays the real-life story of Robert Stroud who became an inmate of the infamous Alcatraz and was refused the right to keep his birds as pets. The tragic tale of a good man incarcerated for younger crimes won Lancaster a BAFTA for best actor.
Atlantic City
Lancaster returned to the awards stage by winning a string of Best Actor awards for his role in this 1980 Louis Malle film. He plays the role of Lou Pascal, am ambitious but small-time bookie who falls into the criminal underworld. He embroils young croupier Sally (Susan Sarandon) until their lives become a faded dream of once desperately sought glories.
Perhaps his most wistful role, this endearing Scottish film by Bill Forsyth was Burt Lancaster's finest comedy role. He plays the unhappy and therapy-bound oil magnate Felix Happer who travels to Scotland to sabotage his own oil refinery plan and set up an observatory instead. In ill health at the time, this gentle role showed Lancaster's deep sensitivity to humour and life's more important obsessions.
Tough Guys
In 1986 Lancaster teamed up with his 'buddy' Kirk Douglas for the last time in this comedy of two old-school gangsters released from prison into the modern world, confused and bedazzled by everything from women to traffic to clothing.
Final Role
Burt Lancaster's final affair with the movies was the Kevin Costner 1989 sport drama Field of Dreams where he plays the inspirational baseball legend 'Moonlight' Graham He died in Century City, California in 1994, having dominated the last century of screen with his physical and emotional stage presence.
