Product Description
First time in paperback: The landmark biography of one of Hollywood's last bigger-than-life stars.

Now in paperback, here is the critically acclaimed, best-selling biography of one of Hollywood's legendary stars. Burt Lancaster is known to audiences around the world as the electrifying performer of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, From Here to Eternity, and Birdman of Alcatraz, among many others. Kate Buford brings to life his vivid, memorable on-screen presence as well as the off-screen life he kept intensely private. The first writer to win cooperation from Lancaster's widow and close friends, Buford has written the intimate story of one of the last great unexamined Hollywood lives, capturing both the golden boy and the husband, philanderer, and sometime bisexual. Buford's portrait is compelling, comprehensive, intelligent-and definitive.Amazon.com Review
If you have any serious interest in movies, you've got to read NPR pundit Kate Buford's sharp-eyed, meticulous, intelligent account of Burt Lancaster's life and work. The most inward of actors--director Luchino Visconti called him "the most perfectly mysterious man I ever met"--Lancaster spurned most press attention. Buford proves there was more to the No. 1 box-office star of Elmer Gantry and From Here to Eternity than muscles and big capped teeth. Growing up in Mob-ruled Harlem (Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll perpetrated the famous "baby massacre" on Lancaster's block), Lancaster ran off to the circus as an acrobat, went to war, and hit stardom at 33. Sweet Smell of Success cowriter Clifford Odets said there were seven Burts, including "Inscrutable Burt" and "Monster Golem Burt." He intimidated Montgomery Clift and Norman Mailer, threatened to toss his producer out a window, slugged Margot Kidder, put a girlfriend in the hospital by hurling her in the air just like his character in Brute Force, and made Kirk Douglas cry by mocking his elevator shoes. After he seduced costar Yvonne De Carlo in her mink coat (he also bedded Deborah Kerr and Marlene Dietrich), the mother of his five children comforted herself with innumerable minks and bottles of booze. His kids were neglected; the son whose baseball team Lancaster coached wrote The Bad News Bears, capturing Burt in the gruff Matthau character.

Buford notes that the seducer Gantry and control freak J.J. Hunsecker were closest to the real Burt, while the Birdman of Alcatraz was who he wanted to be. She takes us behind the scenes, showing precisely what the actor contributed (and threatened to undermine) in his great films, including his Oscar win as producer, Marty. Buford also explains how his independent film company anticipated many later trends but blew it by overspending on script development, and assesses his brilliant deconstruction of his own legend as the lion in winter of Local Hero and Atlantic City. And she puts all gossip in perspective. Burt's jealousy as he fumed in his car outside the house where his ex Shelley Winters was bedding Marlon Brando had a film-historical importance: Brando also stole Stanley Kowalski and the Godfather roles from Burt, and he represented the Method acting style Burt strenuously opposed for the first half of his career. Because he was too smart and curious to stick with one persona, and more interested in art than money, Lancaster needs a landmark biography. He's got one now. And you must check out his full-backside nudity on the back cover! --Tim Appelo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Uneven, but Worth Reading
There's not much to add to the reviews that already have been posted. I agree that Buford's neverending insinuations and questions about Lancaster's sexuality are annoying; they're almost a writer's tic, something once started that she loses control of. Since she's so preoccupied with the issue, she needs only to confront it in one or two pages and then move on. The author's own research demonstrates Lancaster's heterosexuality so why she feels the need to keep scratching this itch is beyond me. Case closed. She has a number of other tics, of course, like her constant references to Lancaster's "god-like" appearance, his teeth, and his grace; perhaps a more careful job of editing might have trimmed some of this repititiousness.

Having grown up watching Burt Lancaster's films, I gained a good perspective from this book on the nature of his accomplishments. His film career, which began when he was already in his thirties, was nevertheless prolific, and it had a distinctive arc that turned this one-time circus acrobat into a real screen artist. I was happy to learn that he was a true political liberal and that he participated in many important political and humanitarian causes. Buford also does a good job of revealing how complex Lancaster was as a person, someone who was both a devoted family man and a philanderer, a kindly teacher and a raging bully, a great athlete who valued being in shape and a drinker and chain smoker of unfiltered Camels.

Buford's writing veers from the straightforward to the semiacademic, from the clear to the opaque, although for the most part the book is well-written and insightful. Since Lancaster was also a producer, Buford offers a wealth of information on contracts, financial arrangements, business deals, and so on. These passages greatly slow down the narrative; perhaps much of this detail could have been relegated to endnotes. Only on rare occasions does Buford's grammar become questionable. Describing Harold Hecht, she offers this example of a dangling participle: "Five-feet three inches tall and thirty-eight years old, Photoplay's Ruth Waterbury called him 'a small-time agent.'" Hecht, of course, not Waterbury was five feet, etc. There are times I thought she might have gone more deeply into the subjects she raises (such as Lancaster's cosmetic surgery, hinted at and then ignored), but the book is already on the long side, so she probably had to eliminate material for reasons of space.

Buford seems to have a dislike for Kirk Douglas, who gets the short end of the stick whenever she discusses him in comparison with Lancaster (who took perverse pleasure, it seems, in mocking Douglas's lesser height). In one passage, she gushes over Lancaster's athleticism while suggesting that Douglas was greatly inferior to Lancaster in this regard. To anyone familiar with Douglas's career, this strikes a strange note, as Douglas was highly respected for his physical prowess and, while he may not have been a circus acrobat, was certainly among the most athletic of movie stars.

Some errors pop up here and there: Buford refers to the Actors Studio as the Actors Workshop, which she says Lee Strasberg founded. And Strasberg didn't found the Studio (Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Cheryl Crawford did). More egregious is Buford's statement that Gregory Peck played the lead in High Noon and that he was Oscar nominated for it. Gary Cooper, of course, was the star, and he was not only nominated for the Oscar but won it. Later in the book, she correctly identifies Cooper as the star. These kinds of missteps can make you wonder what other errors the author has made.

Still, a book of this scope is rarely perfect; for all its problems, I can't say I didn't like Buford's biography, so I've given it 4 stars.

Book Review of Burt Lancaster: An American Life
How do you write the life story of a man, known by literally millions of people, who spent most of his adult life pretending to be someone else - and who made millions and became known by millions both as himself as well asthese other folks whom he is pretending to be from time to time?You do it as Kate Buford has done it - carefully research for the facts; stick to the facts while interpreting the behavior of the man who is doing all this pretending; and interpreting the facts with intelligence and insight, while scrupulously avoiding the potential bigotry that might tempt one to play God in the comprehensive and beautiful narrative of the life of arguably
the best male actor of his generation.

Her story is carefully documented - she uses her sources with great creativity as well as care and respect for the edges of the life of an actor who was not always the paradigm of fairness and truth, just as we are ourselves.The most significant aspect of her story, however, is her ability to bring forth the man whom we seek to know as a man rather than a figure playing a role that has been designed for him, which he can only interpret, not live. The life which he did live was more interesting and in some ways as unlikely as one could possibly imagine.But she does not rely on the kind of cheap contrasts that would tempt a less honest and talented biographer. Her insights are not exposures intended to cut her subject down to size, but to help us understand the way he lived his life, as well as to explain some of the less conventional adventures that are common to the cinema industry.In some ways her work contradicts our images of the fictitious figure the screen presents to us, and in other ways it reinforces and explains it in the interests of our appreciation of his work as well as his non-working self. But in all cases her analyses are fair, interesting, and helpful in presenting to our admiration of the actor, another layer of appreciation for the man.

It presents a lengthy and complete description of a movie idol that is neither sentimental nor vindictive - and for me, it reinforced admiration for his talents and achievements without denigration of the more personal shortcomings that all of us have, but are seldom exposed to the rest of the world in headlines and nauseus detail.

Charles F. Kriete,
Carlisle PA

Unsubstantiated & Erroneous Information - Blechh!
I did not buy this book and am glad for it.Aside from the fact that I found the writing to be average, I was truly amazed that the information contained in this book is presented as fact rather than the gossip it is.In essence, this book is a National Enquirer article with a hard cover.

A Star and an actor of considerable talent
I read this biography when it first came out and I used it as a reference whenever I watched any of Burt Lancaster's films. It was full of useful information and anecdotes about his various projects. I didn't know for instance that he was one of the first actors to become a part of the business of Hollywood and that the film Marty was made with his production company.
In many ways BL was a pioneer. He tried everything and usually succeeded. He has made a couple of bad films but he was always working and always trying to get better. One could see that he was truly a part of Hollywood.
One great thing about this book is the way that is written. The author does such a good job that you feel as if you are really watching him move across the pages.
My early memory of him is in the pirate films with his side kick. He was really nothing more than an amusing actor and acrobat. I followed his career and saw him evolve into the character in Atlantic City and many other films. In a way I feel that we grew up together.

Deja vu
After reading Kate Buford's tedious and somewhat salacious bio of Burt Lancaster, I read an earlier account of the actor's life: Against Type: The Biography of Burt Lancaster by Gary Fishgall (published in 1995, not long after Lancaster's death).Not only is Fishgall's version more interesting, but I felt a strong sense of deja vu as I read it, thinking that Buford obviously used Fishgall's book as a primary source for her own book.Entire sentences and passages mirrored many written by Fishgall--if not word for word, certainly in tone and sequence.If you want to see a photograph of Burt's bare behind and ponder unfounded speculations that the actor was gay or bisexual, buy Buford's book.If you want a more solid, well-documented biography of the man, choose Fishgall's. ... Read more

Product Description
A profile of the career of Burt Lancaster chronicles his impoverished East Harlem childhood, 1946 debut with The Killers, three marriages, and achievements in more than eighty films. 25,000 first printing. Tour. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Solid research but lacks poetry
I enjoyed reading Against Type, but wish the author had been more expressive and inspired. Gives good overview of Lancaster's career.
Fishgall covers most of the bases but I would have liked more of Burt's impact on pop culture.

A Professional Job
Gary Fishgall is very good on the professional life of actors. He's written about James Stewart, Burt Lancaster, and Gregory Peck. Fishgall seems not very much interested in [physical activity] and social name-dropping, which is fine with me. He gives the bare facts of the actor's social life without the juicy and sordid detail for which many people read star biographies.

On the actor's professional life and accomplishments, Fishgall is excellent. He covers childhood and youth thoroughly as it relates to the future career. He discusses every professional job the actor ever had. You learn not only about the big successes, with which you may already be familiar, but also the small successes and the failures. Nothing relating to the professional life is left out. You learn what the subject thought about his coworkers and what they thought about him.

I have now read two of Fishgall's bios and plan to read the third. This is just the kind of information I find fascinating. If you enjoy any of Fishgall's bios, you may also enjoy Vincente Minnelli's "I Remember It Well." Minnelli's story-telling mode is very similar to Fishgall's. He dwells on his professional life and downplays the personal.

Increases appreciation of one of Hollywood's Greats
Chronicles the professional life and accomplishments of one of Hollywood's most loved stars, Burt Lancaster.I was disappointed with the lack of insight into the personal life of Lancaster, but as a biography of his professional life it was excellent.It was fascinating to read of the diametrically opposite views that co-stars and directors had for him, ranging from ardour to hate. This is an unbiased portrait of a great star ... Read more

Product Description
336 Pages * Coffee table edition * $39.95 * Hardcover w/dustjacket * 300 photographs including 40 movie posters from classic Lancaster films * Library bound and printed on acid-free paper * Complete cast list and credits, plot synopses and film notes, and more than 200 critical reviews * PLUS... Telefilms, miniseries, TV guest appearances, short subject and documentary work, stage plays, radio, and more! ... Read more

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With a career in films spanning nearly fifty years, Burt Lancaster brought his unique charisma and energy to roles in films ranging from the adventurous to the bittersweet. This comprehensive filmography of Lancaster’s career is accompanied by a biography that provides the background for his immense range of work on the screen. Production information, a synopsis, and commentary is provided for each of Lancaster’s 85 films, from the first—The Killers—to the last—Separate But Equal. Photographs from nearly all of Lancaster's films accompany the text, and an index and bibliography are also included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

highly valued replacement text...
Dave Fury's similar treatment, (1989) will be re-issued in 2002. Ed's filmography is the definitive narrative, useful key to popular 'cult' classic 50's film starring Burt..."Sweet Smell of Success" for which Ann Hornaday, ex-film critic Baltimore Sun, has a book in development. ... Read more

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Acclaimed as one of the finest film biographies of recent years, Burt Lancaster is the definitive study of the actor who not only starred in classics such as From Here to Eternity, Elmer Gantry, The Leopard and Atlantic City but also ran the first actor-led production company in Hollywood, responsible for landmark films such as Marty and The Sweet Smell of Success. His eventful private life, restless energy, relentless curiosity and continual development as an actor mark him out as that rarity, a star who was every bit as interesting off-screen as on. ... Read more

Product Description
This work traces the rise of one of the most enduring figures in cinema. According to cinema legend, Burt Lancaster was discovered in an elevator by a stage producer who mistook him for an actor and gave him a part on Broadway. Though the play only lasted for 23 performances it was enough to attract the movie scouts, and a year later he made his screen debut in "The Killers". Lancaster's arrival coincided with the rise of "film noir", to which his physique and personality were eminently suited. He rapidly established himself as one of Hollywood's star performers, and showed a determination to have things his own way - as many directors learned to their cost. Combining box-office success with a desire to make less popular but more worthy films, he refused to conform to type. The range of screen roles he appeared in encompassed movies as diverse as "From Here to Eternity", "Gunfight at the OK Corral", "Sweet Smell of Success", "The Leopard", "Atlantic City" and "Local Hero". When he died in October 1994, shortly before his 81st birthday, he left a legacy of some 70 films spanning over 40 years, and an indelible imprint on the history of the cinema industry.This biography follows Lancaster through every stage of his ever-shifting career, and the photographs depict this in his many guises. The author is editor of "Who's Who in Hollywood" and "Chronicle of the Cinema" and has written a biography of Audrey Hepburn, "A Star Dance: The Life of Audrey Hepburn". She is also co-author of "Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful Treasury of Photos
Robyn Kearney's 'Burt Lancaster: A Singular Man' is an excellent overview of the actor's life and career, featuring several high-quality photos and movie posters. Includes a complete filmography.It would make a fine addition to any filmbook library.

Cancelled
Please check your records before sending these messages.This order was cancelled by the seller (abe books) because they didn't have a copy left to sell to me.They refunded my money and I got the book from another seller.I've already left feedback with the merchant from whom I actually got the book. ... Read more

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BURT LANCASTER
Burt Lancaster was not the subject of a main file, but his name was mentioned in files about other people. He was mentioned as a possible person who would join the March on Washington in August of 1963.


... Read more

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The Day Burt Lancaster Died takes place over one winter s Wednesday in Henry s pub, a magical place where three retired fellows--the narrator, Mudder, and Archie--meet to drink half drafts, philosophize, ask probing questions--but never to reminisce.

Underneath the calm and innocent exterior of everyone lurks a secret or two. Mudder, who earned his nickname on the football field at university, lives with a particularly dark secret from Viet Nam. He and Henry, the pub owner, have a silent, convoluted relationship only barely understood by the narrator.

Archie s story is a cautionary tale that is relevant to every parent who has raised a child. A beloved son s sexual awakenings lead him to turmoil and confusion as he attempts to come to grips with his emerging homosexuality and the tragic consequences that ensue in the small, insular town in which they live. ... Read more

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Two radio shows on one cassette tape. 60 minutes. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Train is a 1964 war movie written by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis and directed by John Frankenheimer. It stars Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau. Art masterpieces looted by the German Army from French museums are being shipped to Germany; the officer in charge of the operation, Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), is an art lover and is desperate to bring the art to Germany. After the Germans remove the art chosen by von Waldheim from the Jeu de Paume Museum, curator Mademoiselle Villard seeks help from the French Resistance. Given the imminent liberation of Paris by the Allies, they need only delay the train for a few days ? still, it is an extremely dangerous operation and it must be done in such a way that does not risk damaging the priceless cargo. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Run Silent, Run Deep is a war film released in 1958 based on the 1955 novel by then-Commander Edward L. Beach, Jr.. The movie was directed by Robert Wise and it starred Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, and Jack Warden. It also featured the movie debut of Don Rickles. The film depicts the grim reality of WW II submarine warfare as well as exploring the themes of vengeance, endurance, courage, loyalty, and honor, and how these can be tested in time of war. It is considered one of the great war action films of its genre. ... Read more

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A nice set of 3 original b&w 8" x 10" scene stills from Atlantic City. All 3 picture Burt Lancaster in his last great performance. Susan Sarandon is also pictured in 1 still, the other two are portraits of Mr. Lancaster. Sold as a set only. Fine. ... Read more

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A portrait of Burt Lancaster, which looks at his rise to fame, the setting up of his own production company, the films in which he performed most of his own stunts, his turbulent private life and the reputation he acquired of being a tempestuous character. ... Read more