Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American actor. Initially known for playing tough characters with tender hearts, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. Lancaster was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor (winning once), and he also won two BAFTA Awards, one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor, one Silver Bear, one Volpi Cup and two David di Donatello awards. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema. Lancaster performed as a circus acrobat in the 1930s. At the age of 32 and after serving in World War II, he landed a role in a Broadway play and drew the attention of a Hollywood agent. His appearance in film noir The Killers in 1946 with Ava Gardner was a critical success and launched both of their careers. In 1948, Lancaster starred alongside Barbara Stanwyck in the commercially and critically acclaimed film Sorry, Wrong Number, where he portrayed the husband to her bedridden invalid character. In 1953, Lancaster played the illicit lover of Deborah Kerr in the military drama From Here to Eternity. A box office smash, it won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and landed a Best Actor nomination for Lancaster. Later in the 1950s, he starred in The Rainmaker (1956) with Katharine Hepburn, earning a Best Actor Golden Globe nomination, and in 1957 he starred in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) with frequent co-star Kirk Douglas. During the 1950s, his production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was highly successful, with Lancaster acting in films such as: Trapeze (1956), a box office smash in which he used his acrobatic skills and for which he won the Silver...