Age, Biography and Wiki

Burt Lancaster was an American actor who had a successful career spanning over five decades. He was known for his roles in films such as From Here to Eternity, The Birdman of Alcatraz, and Elmer Gantry. He was nominated for four Academy Awards and won one for his performance in Elmer Gantry. Lancaster was born on November 2, 1913 in Manhattan, New York. He was the son of Elizabeth Roberts and James Henry Lancaster. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School and then went on to study at the New School for Social Research. Lancaster began his acting career in the 1940s, appearing in Broadway plays and small roles in films. He made his breakthrough in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He went on to star in a number of successful films, including The Birdman of Alcatraz, The Professionals, and Elmer Gantry. Lancaster was married twice, first to Norma Anderson from 1935 to 1946, and then to Susan Martin from 1946 until his death in 1994. He had three children with Anderson and two with Martin. At the time of his death, Burt Lancaster had an estimated net worth of $10 million.

Popular As Burton Stephen Lancaster
Occupation actor,producer,miscellaneous
Age 81 years old
Zodiac Sign Scorpio
Born 2 November 1913
Birthday 2 November
Birthplace New York City, New York, US
Date of death October 20, 1994
Died Place Los Angeles, California, US
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 2 November. He is a member of famous Actor with the age 81 years old group.

Burt Lancaster Height, Weight & Measurements

At 81 years old, Burt Lancaster height is 6' 2" (1.88 m) .

Physical Status
Height 6' 2" (1.88 m)
Weight Not Available
Body Measurements Not Available
Eye Color Not Available
Hair Color Not Available

Who Is Burt Lancaster's Wife?

His wife is Susan Martin (m. 1990)

Family
Parents Not Available
Wife Susan Martin (m. 1990)
Sibling Not Available
Children 5; including Bill

Burt Lancaster Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. So, how much is Burt Lancaster worth at the age of 81 years old? Burt Lancaster’s income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. He is from United States. We have estimated Burt Lancaster's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets.

The Killers (1946)$20,000
Brute Force (1947)$45,000
Desert Fury (1947)$1,250 /week
From Here to Eternity (1953)$120,000
The Young Savages (1961)$150,000
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)$750,000
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)$150,000
Seven Days in May (1964)$200 .000
The Train (1964)$150,000
The Hallelujah Trail (1965)$150,000
Scorpio (1973)$750,000 + 10% of profits
Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)$750,000

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Timeline

1997

Ranked #85 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

1995

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#100). [1995]

1991

Suffered a severe stroke while visiting actor Dana Andrews, who was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Lancaster remained hospitalized until February 1991, and incapacitated and unable to speak until his death in October, 1994. [November 1990]

1989

Was cast in Old Gringo (1989) but was informed by Columbia when he arrived in Mexico City for rehearsals in December 1987 that he was being replaced with Gregory Peck, as the insurance for him was too high. He sued Columbia for his $1.5-million fee, and made an out-of-court settlement.

1985

Had tried to raise financing for four years for Hector Babenco's film of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), based on the novel by Manuel Puig, after Babenco gave him the novel in 1981 at the NY Film Critics Society Ceremony. Lancaster was to have played the role of Molina, the gay hairdresser who shares a cell with Valentin, a political prisoner. However, Lancaster had a heart attack in June 1983, and subsequently a quadruple-bypass operation, and at the age of 70, he was essentially uninsurable. He had to withdraw from roles in Maria's Lovers (1984), Gorky Park (1983), Firestarter (1984) and the TV mini-series A.D. (1985). The film was later made for less than $1 million with William Hurt in the role Lancaster wanted to play. Hurt won a Best Actor Oscar as Molina.

1983

Until undergoing emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery in 1983, he maintained the fantastic physical health he attained as an acrobat in his youth. He impressed many who knew him with his apparently enormous strength.

1981

Suffered his first heart attack during the making of Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981) in 1979.

1980

In January 1980, he almost died during a routine operation to remove his gallbladder, when the operation, which should have lasted five hours, turned into an 11-hour ordeal. After the organ was removed, a team of doctors worked to repair an unusually small channel from the gallbladder to the intestines, although Lancaster later told a friend that a doctor had accidentally cut into a valve. A doctor reportedly got down on the floor to pray for the actor's life. Lancaster was in intensive care for 48-hours after the operation.

1978

Came up with $150,000 of his own money to complete Go Tell the Spartans (1978) after the production ran out of money with five days left to shoot. The shooting schedule already had been pared from 40 to 31 days to save money.

1976

Robert Altman wanted Lancaster for the role of Ned Buntline in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) because he had the "stature" of a great movie star but was "able to play that as a kind of bullshitter", which was what Altman conceived the character to be: "He understood totally the bullshit factor and what he was playing." Buntline, a real-life writer of nickel Westerns, had invented Buffalo Bill Cody as a western hero; Altman knew that Lancaster had invented himself as a star, a new kind of star that had revolutionized the movies in the 1950s.

1972

Told Bruce Davison, his co-star in Ulzana's Raid (1972), of a practical joke he played on Kirk Douglas, who was several inches shorter than Lancaster: "I'll never forget the time we were getting ready for our big two-shot and I hid his lifts on him. He was so pissed!"

1971

Helped pay for the defense of Private Billy Dean Smith, an African American soldier accused of 'fragging' two officers in Vietnam in 1971. Lancaster gave $3,000 to his defense attorneys to hire ballistics experts to testify at his court-martial. Smith was acquitted.

1970

He made a great deal of money from Airport (1970), which was a huge hit, due to a 10% profit participation once the movie hit $50 million. (the film grossed $45.3 million in North America alone). Lancaster said that the movie was "the worst piece of junk ever made."

1969

His first TV role was a guest appearance on Song of the Cloud Forest (1969) in 1969, reciting the alphabet.

1965

In July 1965, United Artists made a settlement with Lancaster to end is association with his production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, which had financially floundered in the late 1950s due to a few flops and exorbitant spending, and wound up operations in 1959. The payoff amount was $920,954.85, approximately $5,223,000 in 2003 dollars. In 1964, part of the proposed settlement with UA had been for Lancaster to star in Khartoum (1966) but that role eventually was played by Charlton Heston.

1963

Known for his liberal political sympathies, he was one of the Hollywood movie stars, along with Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis Jr., Charlton Heston, Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman, who participated in Martin Luther King's March on Washington in August 1963. He flew home from Europe, where he was making a film, to participate. He was a financial supporter of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1962

After placing tenth place in the Motion Picture Herald poll of most popular box-office stars in 1962, he dropped to 18th place in 1963 and never again appeared on the list.

1960

According to Kate Buford in her biography "Burt Lancaster: An American Life," he felt competitive with Marlon Brando, who achieved stardom playing Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, a role Lancaster turned down. A Top 10 box-office success in the early 1960s, it was this sense of competition with Brando, who was known as both an actor's actor and a major movie star, that led Lancaster to plunge into art films and riskier fare such as Luchino Visconti's The Leopard (1963), in order to prove himself as an actor and be known as an artist rather than just a movie star. After this refocusing of his career, he slipped out of the Top 10 and never again was a major box office attraction.

1959

A self-described atheist, Lancaster had turned down the role in the remake of Ben-Hur (1959) played by Charlton Heston, but followed in Heston's footsteps when he played the title role in Moses the Lawgiver (1974), the $5-million TV epic produced by Britain's ATV-ITC and Italy's RAI Television. When a reporter asked him if he was following in Heston's sandal-clad steps, Lancaster replied, "If Charlton was trapped in Biblical films, it was his own fault - he accepted the limitation." Though Lancaster claimed he was an atheist, some of his friends doubted him.

1956

Despite his enduring stardom, he surprisingly only placed in Quigley Publications' Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars twice: #4 in 1956 and #10 in 1963. The annual poll of movie exhibitors ranks the top stars in terms of box-office drawing power. Even more surprisingly, his friend and co-star Kirk Douglas never made the list during his career.

1955

His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, produced such films as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955) (Oscar winner 1955) and The Catered Affair (1956).

1953

Felt intimidated by co-star Montgomery Clift on the set of From Here to Eternity (1953) due to Clift's great talent.

1952

He played many different roles in pictures as varied as The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Atlantic City (1980).

1951

Lancaster lost out on two roles he lobbied for to Marlon Brando (roles that helped make Brando a legend): that of Stanley Kowalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1951) and that of Don Vito Corleone in 'The Godfather' (1972).

1950

Allegedly showed up at a Hollywood Oscar party in the late 1950s wearing a G-string and spray-painted gold, resembling an Academy Award statuette after a similar stunt had been done by Rock Hudson and Vera-Ellen.

1949

Was Cecil B. DeMille's first choice to play "Samson" in Samson and Delilah (1949).

1948

He set up his own production company in 1948 with Harold Hecht and James Hill to direct his career.

1947

In 1947 he was offered the role of Stanley Kowalski in the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" after first choice John Garfield was rejected due to his demands for a ownership percentage of the play. He turned down the role that went to Marlon Brando and made him a legend.

1946

Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All of his grandparents were immigrants from Northern Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he was injured. It was in the Army during WW II that he was introduced to the USO and acting. His first film was The Killers (1946), and that made him a star. He was a self-taught actor who learned the business as he went along.

1939

He was voted the 39th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

1930

Graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in New York [1930]

1927

Was a big fan of the silent film The Unknown (1927), probably partially because the movie took place in a circus, and Burt himself spent a lot of time early in his life in a circus. He once said that no scene in any movie affected him as emotionally as the one in this movie in which Lon Chaney learns that Joan Crawford does not love him.

1880

Descended from Irish Protestants from Ulster who emigrated to the United States in the 1880s.