Burt Lancaster: An American Life (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

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

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (March 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679446036
• ISBN-13: 978-0679446033
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,234,199 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Deja vu, July 11, 2006

By	Lozenges (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burt Lancaster: An American Life (Thorndike Press Large Print Biography Series) (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating man of principle given an incomplete biography, July 26, 2000

By	Davina G Hill (Salisbury, MD United States) - See all my reviews

I suppose Buford's book is a great one -- because it has made me fascinated by an actor I'd not thought much about before reading this biography. But I am left with so many questions and curiosities. Usually a bio. answers more questions than it raises. For all the fascinating film minutia provided did researcher Buford feel more comfotable with files than with people? Why isn't there more dialogue from friends, family and colleagues? Why is the arc of his life chronicled as he stepped from one film role to another with only the barest of personal information hung on that arc? For a child and young man described as having a beautiful voice why wasn't it heard in the movies? What films did BL appreciate? Which ones did he dismiss? I wanted much more info! On the other hand this bio has sent me on a quest to see every one of his films, to buy other bios and to discover more about this elusive, introverted, flawed man of great personal loyalties and ethical principles. I guess I'll just have to look to Burt Lancaster himself to give me clues to my questions. Somehow I think I hear his booming laughter at the appropriateness of that.

28 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Biography Of A Great Man, April 17, 2000

By A Customer

I jst finished reading this book and the only reason I don't give it 5 stars is Author Buford hints on more than a few occasions that Burt was Bi-sexual( personally I don't care) but, no proof is provided. There were a couple instances alluded too of him attending parties where homosexuals congregated. Big Deal! There was a certain NY Author who wrote several Bographies intimating beloved icons of the silver screen were bi-sexual. I think the Author should have left that out. The Book, written from a woman's point of view makes Run Silent Run Deep- one of the most exiting, acted and well-made films on WW 2.. sound ho-hum. She does do a good job of giving credit to lesser known films such as The Swimmer which is totally unique. Only Lncaster could have done the role. The film was made in late 66- and 67 then released in '68 as a total faiilure commercially. Lancaster who looks like a greek statue coming to life..is totally ageless in the picture( he was 54) and yet, just a few years later in Ulzana's Raid.released in '72 the Booze and smoking had taken their toll. What sounds like a bizrre idea for a movie..Burt decides to spontaneously swim all the pools of his friends or shall we say acquaintances...and he finds he can't relate to any of them. It's so sad-beautiful like a haunting dream that did or didn't exist. The Stories recited about the making of such classics as From Here To Eternity-Jim Thorpe & Elmer Gantry...will be of inerest to anyone.Call it a Burt Lancaster picture that's all you need to say_ The Train-Valdez Is Coming-Executive Action-Come Back Little Sheba-Rocket Gibralter-The Killers-Go Tell The Spartans-Sorry Wrong Number-Field Of Dreams-Criss Cross-BruteForce-Gunfight At TheOK Corral- The Crimson Pirate-Birdman Of Alcatraz-7 Days In May-The Professionals. Has any other Actor made more good-great films that were so varied, highly entertaining and also said something? What I loved about Lancaster was his sense of decency..he marched in the Civil Rights Protest in the 60's..he got the first JFK Pro-Conspiracy film made Executive Action when officialdom kept telling us Oswald acted alone. For this and many other reasons he was a great great star that can't be replaced.