Burl Ives

Acting

Burl Ives

Born 1909-06-14 · Hunt City, Illinois, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. Ives began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942 he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, and then became a major star of CBS radio. In the 1960s he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". A popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s, Ives's best-known film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart (1949) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), as well as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ives is often remembered for his voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which continues to air annually around Christmas.

Acting credits

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof poster
7.6

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

1958

East of Eden poster
7.5

In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

East of Eden

1955

The Big Country poster
7.6

Retired wealthy sea captain Jim McKay arrives in the Old West, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between his future father-in-law, Major Terrill, and the rough and lawless Hannasseys over a valuable patch of land.

The Big Country

1958

Two Moon Junction poster
6.1

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

Two Moon Junction

1988

White Dog poster
6.6

Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of all animals; the human being.

White Dog

1982

The Ewok Adventure poster
5.8

Wicket the Ewok and his friends agree to help two shipwrecked human children, Mace and Cindel, on a quest to find their parents.

The Ewok Adventure

1984

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer poster
7.4

Sam the snowman tells us the story of a young red-nosed reindeer who, after being ousted from the reindeer games because of his glowing nose, teams up with Hermey, an elf who wants to be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the prospector. They run into the Abominable Snowman and find a whole island of misfit toys. Rudolph vows to see if he can get Santa to help the toys, and he goes back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. But Santa's sleigh is fogged in. But when Santa looks over Rudolph, he gets a very bright idea...

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

1964

Desire Under the Elms poster
6.8

Ephraim Cabot is an old man of amazing vitality who loves his New England farm with a greedy passion. Hating him, and sharing his greed, are the sons of two wives Cabot has overworked into early graves. Most bitter is Eben, whose mother had owned most of the farm, and who feels who should be sole heir. When the old man brings home a new wife, Anna, she becomes a fierce contender to inherit the farm. Two of the sons leave when Eben gives them the fare in return for their shares of the farm. Meanwhile, Anna tries to cause some sparks by rubbing up against Eben.

Desire Under the Elms

1958

So Dear to My Heart poster
6.6

The tale of Jeremiah Kincaid and his quest to raise his 'champion' lamb, Danny. Jeremiah's dream of showing Danny at the Pike County Fair must overcome the obstinate objections of his loving, yet strict, grandmother Granny. Jeremiah's confidant, Uncle Hiram, is the boy's steady ally.

So Dear to My Heart

1948

The Bermuda Depths poster
5.5

Scientists pursuing the mysteries of the deep are threatened by a beautiful girl who seems to have returned from the dead and by a prehistoric sea creature that dwells in the deadly Bermuda Triangle.

The Bermuda Depths

1978

Day of the Outlaw poster
6.8

Blaise Starrett is a rancher at odds with homesteaders when outlaws hold up the small town. The outlaws are held in check only by their notorious leader, but he is diagnosed with a fatal wound and the town is a powder keg waiting to blow.

Day of the Outlaw

1959

Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage poster
9.0

A study of Tennessee Williams's life and work as a whole, ranging from his youth in Mississippi and in St. Louis to success and acclaim, followed by the final difficult years. Includes some of the most celebrated scenes from film adaptations of Williams' work, among them extracts of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951),Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Night of the Iguana, The (1964), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1993) (TV). Contains footage of Williams being interviewed, including conversations with David Frost, 'Edward R. Murrow (I)', and Melvyn Bragg, as well as reminiscences from people who knew and worked with him, among them Edward Albee, Gore Vidal, and his lifelong friend, Lady Maria St. Just. Features readings from Elia Kazan's Notebook by Kim Hunter.

Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage

1994

Our Man in Havana poster
6.7

Jim Wormold is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn’t very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba.

Our Man in Havana

1960

Summer Magic poster
6.7

Mother Carey, a Bostonian widow, and her three children move to Maine. Postmaster Osh Popham helps them move into a run-down old house and fixes it up for them. It's not entirely uninhabited, though; the owner, Mr. Hamilton, is a mysterious character away in Europe, but Osh assures them he won't mind their living there, since he won't be coming home for a long time yet. The children and a cousin who comes to live with them have various adventures before an unexpected visitor shows up

Summer Magic

1963

Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon poster
5.5

Phineas T. Barnum and friends finance the first flight to the moon but find the task a little above them. They attempt to blast their rocket into orbit from a massive gun barrel built into the side of a Welsh mountain, but money troubles, spies and saboteurs ensure that the plan is doomed before it starts...

Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon

1967

Wind Across the Everglades poster
6.2

Set in the early 20th century, the film follows a game warden who arrives in Florida to enforce conservation laws. He soon finds himself pitted against Cottonmouth, the leader of a fierce group of bird poachers.

Wind Across the Everglades

1958

Ensign Pulver poster
6.5

1945, on an old cargo ship somewhere deep in the Pacific ocean: Captain Morton strives to become commander, so he demands the maximum quality of work from his crew, without granting them any freedom or favors - ignoring that they're thousand of miles away from the front. In one word: he drives his crew crazy. They are near mutiny, but no-one dares to do the first step. Until Ensign Pulver plays a prank on the captain that triggers fatal consequences...

Ensign Pulver

1964

Just You and Me, Kid poster
5.5

George Burns stars as a former vaudevillian who befriends a young runaway, played by 14-year old Brooke Shields, who is being chased by drug dealers.

Just You and Me, Kid

1979

The Brass Bottle poster
6.3

A genie tends to get his master into more predicaments than he gets him out of.

The Brass Bottle

1964

Station West poster
6.4

When two US cavalrymen transporting a gold shipment get killed, US Army Intelligence investigator John Haven goes undercover to a mining and logging town to find the killers.

Station West

1948

Earthbound poster
5.0

A family of space aliens crash lands on Earth when their spaceship conks out.

Earthbound

1981

The McMasters poster
4.6

When a black Civil War veteran becomes co-owner of the southern McMasters ranch, the incensed local Confederate veterans come gunning for him and his Indian wife.

The McMasters

1970

Let No Man Write My Epitaph poster
5.9

Nick Romano lives in a poor tenement building on the south side of Chicago with his well-meaning but drug-addicted mother, Nellie. She encourages him to pursue his piano-playing talent in hopes that it will bring him a better life. Nellie's neighbors, like the alcoholic ex-lawyer who secretly loves her, help her in keeping Nick away from Louie, the resident drug dealer. But a chance meeting between Nick and Louie could change things forever.

Let No Man Write My Epitaph

1960

The New Adventures of Heidi poster
5.0

The long-familiar Heidi tale is given a contemporary (and musical) setting as the young heroine leaves her familiar Swiss mountain for the bright lights of Manhattan.

The New Adventures of Heidi

1978