BURT LANCASTER

Burt Lancaster was born in 1913, and was one of the last great "superstars". Yet his first released movie (The Killers) wasn't in theaters until he was 32, after working in a circus for years, and being in WWII. There has never been another actor like him, before or since! After a series of prison, crime, and swashbuckler movies (where he removed his shirt and showed his physical prowess often) he started taking "offbeat" roles (like in Mister 880, Come Back Little Sheba and The Rose Tattoo) and then, as his star grew and he had the clout to do so, he began taking more and more "different" roles, like in Sweet Smell of Success, Judgment at Nuremberg, Birdman Of Alcatraz (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), A Child Is Waiting, The Leopard, Seven Days in May, The Swimmer, Elmer Gantry (winner of the Best Actor Academy Award for this film) and others, and if you haven't seen any of the above, I highly recommend them all! Of course he was also great in most of his "commercial" movies like Trapeze, Brute Force, From Here To Eternity (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Lawman, and many others! At 64 he played the lead in Go Tell the Spartans, a great anti-Vietnam War movie, and two years later he was a credible male romantic lead (at 66) in Atlantic City (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film). Two of his best supporting roles came at the end of his career, in Local Hero and in Field of Dreams. He is well remembered for his odd clipped speech (loved by impressionists) and for his supposed great friendship with Kirk Douglas, with whom he made 7 films (but he said, "Kirk would be the first to admit that he's difficult to work with - and I would be the second"! He seemed so much larger than life, and a giant of a man, but he was 6'1". He passed away in 1994 at the age of 80.