Burt lancaster biography family tree

Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a year career in films and television series. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as 19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

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Lancaster performed as a circus acrobat in the s. 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 breakthrough role was in the film noir The Killers in alongside Ava Gardner. A critical success, it launched both of their careers. In 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.

Corral with frequent co-star Kirk Douglas. During the s, his production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster , was highly successful, with Lancaster acting in films such as: Trapeze , a box office smash in which he used his acrobatic skills and for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor ; Sweet Smell of Success , a dark drama today considered a classic; Run Silent, Run Deep , a WWII submarine drama with Clark Gable ; and Separate Tables , a hotel-set drama which received seven Oscar nominations.

In the early s, Lancaster starred in a string of critically successful films, each in very disparate roles. He played a Nazi war criminal in in the all-star, war-crime-trial film, Judgment at Nuremberg.