Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #529878 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-03
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.61 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

From Amazon.com
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.

From Library Journal
Buford, a National Public Radio commentator, has written the definitive biography of the enigmatic Burt Lancaster. Though Lancaster never authorized a biography in his lifetime, Buford was able to gain the cooperation of his family, colleagues, and friends as well as make excellent use of printed and film resources. She traces Lancaster's life from its meager beginnings in East Harlem to his circus career, his role in the 1946 film noir classic The Killers, and the great success that followed for decades. Buford insightfully presents Lancaster as more than a great star; he was also a man of contradictions, sexuality, intellect, and anger. In addition, she analyzes all Lancaster's film appearances, his work as leader of a Hollywood production company, and his political activities during and after the McCarthy era. Of particular note is Buford's ability to capture the social climate in all of the diverse periods of Lancaster's life and career. Recommended for academic and public libraries; highly recommended for all film collections.
---Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.