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Burt Lancaster & Nick Cravat - ca 1935
photo: Library of Congress
This month is the birthday of film star Burt Lancaster born on November 2, 1913, in New York City, at his parents' home at 209 East 106th Street, Both of his parents were Protestants of working-class background. All four of his grandparents were immigrants from the province of Ulster, Ireland. His maternal side was from Belfast.
Lancaster grew up in East Harlem, New York City.
Before he became a huge movie star he performed as a circus acrobat in the 1930s; his aerial partner was Nick Cravat. When he was 9, Lancaster met Cravat and they 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 joined the Kay Brothers circus, a Federal Theatre Project, a theatre program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States.
with Lancaster standing at the back
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 Field's and then as a singing waiter in various restaurants.
He joined the United States Army in January 1943 and performed with the Army's 21st Special Services Division, one of the military units organized to follow the troops on the ground and provide USO entertainment to maintain morale.
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.
In 1950 he starred in 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. In 1951 he had the title role in the biopic Jim Thorpe – All-American (link below),
In 1952 he starred in The Crimson Pirate, directed by Robert Siodmak. Again, co-starring Nick Cravat, it was extremely popular. Taking the premise of The Flame and the Arrow a step further, it allowed the pair to, not only emphasize the absurdity of the story with more spectacle and comical situations but to demonstrate they were able to perform their own circus skills-based stunts without relying on stuntmen as most Hollywood stars did. As if to downplay this, Lancaster himself speaks to the audience in the opening scene over footage of Lancaster performing a dangerous rope swing from one of his pirate ship's masts to the other. "…in a pirate world, believe only what you see." The footage is then reversed to show a near impossible backwards swing to the first mast again, from which he proclaims "No, believe HALF of what you see."
The Crimson Pirate -1952
movie poster
Lancaster and partner Cravat appeared in eight other films together. Lancaster kept Cravat on his payroll for life as both a trainer and a costar. Because Cravat's character in both The Crimson Pirate and The Flame and the Arrow (1950) is mute, the belief persisted that he was mute himself, but he was given no lines of dialogue because of his thick Brooklyn accent.
Lancaster performed a straight dramatic part in 1952 with Come Back, Little Sheba, based on a Broadway hit, with Shirley Booth, produced by Wallis and directed by Daniel Mann.
Trapeze in 1956, had 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.
Lancaster starred in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) for Stanley Kramer, alongside Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark and a number of other stars. The film was both a commercial and critical success, receiving eleven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
Lancaster died at his apartment in Century City, Los Angeles, after having a third heart attack at 4:50 am on October 20, 1994; he was 80 years old.
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