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Burt Lancaster

An American Life

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Startlingly handsome, witty, fanatically loyal, charming, scary, and intensely sexual, Burt Lancaster was the quintessential bête du cinéma, one of Hollywood's great stars. He was, as well, an intensely private man, and he authorized no biographies in his lifetime. Kate Buford is the first writer to win the cooperation of Lancaster's widow, close friends, and colleagues, and her book is a revelation.
Here is Lancaster the man, from his teenage years, bolting the Depression-era immigrant neighborhood of East Harlem where he grew up for the life of a circus acrobat — then the electric New York theater of the 1930s, then the dying days of vaudeville. We see his production company — Hecht-Hill-Lancaster — become the biggest independent of the 1950s, a bridge between the studio era and modern filmmaking. With the power he derived from it we see him gain a remarkable degree of control, which he used to become the auteur of his own career. His navigation through the anti-Communist witch-hunts made him an example of a star who tweaked the noses of HUAC and survived. His greatest roles — in Sweet Smell of Success, Elmer Gantry, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Swimmer, Atlantic City — kept to the progressive edge that had originated in the tolerant, diverse, reforming principles of his childhood. And in the extraordinary complete roster of his films — From Here to Eternity, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Leopard, 1900, and Field of Dreams, among many others — he proved to be both a master of commercial movies that pleased a worldwide audience and an actor who pushed himself beyond stardom into cinematic art. Kate Buford has written a dynamic biography of a passionate and committed star, the first full-scale study of one of the last great unexamined Hollywood lives.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 28, 2000
      At the height of the Hollywood blacklist, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover received a letter telling him to "check the moving picture Crimson Pirate because in it Burt Lancaster makes a speech about workers" that "sounds like a commie plug." Lancaster's decades-long political involvement with liberal causes (and his constant run-ins with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) are a central theme in this well-researched and engaging biography, which also details the artist's acting career, his turns as a producer and his personal life. Buford, a regular commentator on National Public Radio, has constructed a complex portrait of a man who was a noted womanizer, yet also engaged in sex with men; who was kind and generous, yet often resorted to violence in his personal relationships; who was a mainstream "megastar" (who was parodied in Mad magazine) before reinventing himself as a major figure in Italian art films; and who broke from the imprisoning studio system and revolutionized the industry by beginning an independent production company. By carefully contextualizing Lancaster's more than 50-year career--which began in the circus and included such film classics as From Here to Eternity and Elmer Gantry--within the tumultuous political and economic changes of the postwar years, Buford's finely detailed, sensitive biography ranks among the best of its genre.

    • Library Journal

      November 1, 1999
      Lancaster wanted no biographies during his lifetime, but National Public Radio commentator Buford managed to get the cooperation of his widow, friends, and colleagues for this work.

      Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      January 1, 2000
      There have been several books about Lancaster, one of the last bigger-than-life movie stars, since his 1994 death. Buford laudably concentrates on her subject's doings, which are the stuff of movies in their own right. Lancaster was born in Manhattan's East Harlem, a little less poor than most of the neighbors by virtue of his Irish family's ownership of the building where they lived. He attended a good high school but opted for work instead of college, partly because of the Depression and partly because of the restlessness he later incorporated into his screen portrayals. He chose to work as a small-time circus acrobat and barely eked out a living in the '30s. World War II found him in an army service unit, eventually helping entertain the troops. His good looks in uniform prompted a Broadway scout to recruit him for a war play. The play brought him Hollywood attention. No sooner did he hit the left coast than he met Harold Hecht, with whom he immediately began planning one of the industry's first independent production companies, Hecht-Lancaster (later Hecht-Hill-Lancaster). The rest is movie history, which Buford slogs through by recounting production stories about Lancaster's many high-profile flickers. She ignores what the finished films are like, relying on the odd critic's pronouncement or award citation to suggest a film's quality. Consequently, the book seems full of padding and overstatement as well as short on what it needs to make Lancaster interesting to nonstarstruck readers. Those who are starstruck, however, should enjoy, enjoy. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      February 15, 2000
      Buford, a National Public Radio commentator, has written the definitive biography of the enigmatic Burt Lancaster. Though Lancaster never authorized a biography in his lifetime, Buford was able to gain the cooperation of his family, colleagues, and friends as well as make excellent use of printed and film resources. She traces Lancaster's life from its meager beginnings in East Harlem to his circus career, his role in the 1946 film noir classic The Killers, and the great success that followed for decades. Buford insightfully presents Lancaster as more than a great star; he was also a man of contradictions, sexuality, intellect, and anger. In addition, she analyzes all Lancaster's film appearances, his work as leader of a Hollywood production company, and his political activities during and after the McCarthy era. Of particular note is Buford's ability to capture the social climate in all of the diverse periods of Lancaster's life and career. Recommended for academic and public libraries; highly recommended for all film collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/99.]--Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA

      Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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