Oscar Profile #625: Burl Ives

Born June 14, 1909 in Hunt City, Illinois, Burl Ives was one of seven siblings born tp a farming family. A prolific singer all his life, Ives first sang in public for a soldiers’ reunion when he was age 4. In high school, he learned the banjo and played fullback, intending to become a football coach when he enrolled at Eastern Illinois State Teacher’s College in 1927. He dropped out in 1930 and wandered, hitching rides, doing odd jobs, street singing.

On Broadway in 1938’s The Boys from Syracuse, by 1940 he had his own radio show on CBS calling it Wayfaring Stranger after one of his famous ballads. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, he was baack on Broadway in uniform in Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army later that year. He married his first wife, Hellen Peck Ehrlich, in 1945 with whom he had a son. He would make his film debut in a supporting role in 1946’s Smoky.

In another supporting role in 1948’s Green Grass of Wyoming, in 1949 he was top billed over Beulah Bondi and Bobby Driscoll in So Dear to My Heart for which “Lavender Blue”, the song he introduced in the film, was nominated for an Oscar.

Blacklisted in 1950, he returned to Broadway as Cap’n Andy in the 1954 revival of Show Boat before creating his most famous stage role as Big Daddy in 1955’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He was back on screen in 1955’s East of Eden and 1956’s The Power and the Prize.

Ives’ most successful year on screen was 1958 in which he starred in Wind Across the Everglades and Desire Under the Elms as well as the two films for which he is best remembered, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, reprising his stage role, and The Big Country for which he won his Oscar.

Following his Oscar, Ives continued in high profile roles both supporting and lead in such films as 1959’s Day of the Outlaw and Our Man in Havana, 1960’s Let No Man Write My Epitaph, 1962’s The Spiral Road, 1963’s Summer Magic and 1964’s The Brass Bottle and Ensign Pulver. In 1964 he had his signature TV role as the voice of Sam the Snowman in the animated classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He made his last appearance on Broadway in the title role of 1967’s Dr. Cook’s Garden.

Ives was divorced from his first wife in February 1971. Two months later he married actress Dorothy Koster with whom he would be married until his death. His later work included the TV series, The Bold Ones: The Lawyers from 1969-1972 and major supporting roles in two legendary mini-series, 1977’s Captains and the Kings and 1978’s Roots. His last film role was in 1988’s Two Moon Junction.

Burl Ives retired on his 80th birthday in 1989 but remained available for guest appearances whenever asked. He died in 1995 at 85.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

EAST OF EDEN (1955), directed by Elia Kazan

Ives was fourth billed as Sam the Sheriff behind Julie Harris, James Dean, and Raymond Massey, and above Richard Davalos, Jo Van Fleet, and Lois Smith in Kazan’s film of the last section of John Steinbeck’s classic novel. Dean received a posthumous Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Cal Trask, one of two sons of Adam Trask (Massey) and his estranged wife (Oscar winner Van Fleet). Davalos played his brother Aron. While Ives and Harris fine in their roles, it’s the performances of Dean and Davalos as the brothers, Massey and Van Fleet as their oh-so-different parents, and Smith as Van Fleet’s assistant that you remember.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958), directed by Richard Brooks

Ives reprised his Broadway role of Big Daddy in the film version of Tennessee Williams’ classic play in support of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. Nominated for 6 Oscars including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, and Director, Ives could not be nominated for Best Supporting Actor because of his star billing but don’t worry. He got easily got around that by playing another big daddy in The Big Country, one of his other three films that year. His other two films were Wind in the Everglades and Desire in the Elms based on Eugene O’Neill’s play in which he starred opposite Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins.

THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), directed by William Wyler

Wyler made this classic western between Friendly Persuasion and Ben-Hur with Gregory Peck as the sea captain out of his depth as Carroll Baker’s fiancée. She’s the daughter of wealthy rancher Charles Bickford who is also being pursued by Bickford’s foreman Charlton Heston. Jean Simmons is the schoolteacher with whom Peck has more in common. Ives, in his Oscar winning role, is the uncouth rancher whose family has been feuding with Bickford’s. Chuck conners is Ives’ eldest son. The film’s only other Oscar nomination was for Jerome Moross’ highly evocative score.

LET NO MAN WRITE MY EPITAPH (1960), directed by Philip Leacock

This film version of Willard Motley’s novel was a sequel to Motley’s Knock on Any Door which was filmed in 1949 with Humphrey Bogart as the attorney who defends hoodlum Nick Romano (John Derek) of murder arguing that the oppressiveness of the big city slums was the root cause of his actions. In the sequel the city is identified as Chicago where Romano’s widow (Shelley Winters) struggles to raise Nicky Jr. (James Darren) with the aid of a boozy judge played by Ives and other residents of her tenement building. Jean Seberg, Ricardo Montalban, and Ella Fitzgerald co-star.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (1964), directed by Larry Roemer

This perennial animated TV classic gave Ives the opportunity to sing “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and, of course, the title song as the film’s narrator, Sam the Snowman. This came at the height of Ives’ renewed fame as a singer as well as an actor. He was nominated for Grammys three times in the 1960s for “A Little Bitty Tear” in 1962, “A Funny Way of Laughin’” in 1963, and “Burl Ives Chim Chim Cheer-ee and Other Choices” in 1965. At the same time, he was winding down his highly successful screen career with starring roles as the genie in The Brass Bottle with Tony Randall and as the captain in Ensign Pulver with Robert Walker Jr.