- Helped pay for the defense of Pvt. 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 Smith's court-martial. Smith was acquitted.
- In November 1990 suffered a severe stroke while visiting Dana Andrews, who was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Lancaster remained hospitalized until February 1991 and was incapacitated and unable to speak until his death in October 1994.
- His was the first star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which now numbers in the thousands.
- Joined Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Liza Minnelli, and Orson Welles in testifying against the colorization of old movies by Ted Turner in the mid-'80s.
- He was not close friends with Kirk Douglas, as was often perceived. Their "friendship" was largely fabricated by the publicity-wise Douglas; in reality, they were very competitive with each other and sometimes privately expressed a mutual personal disdain despite mutual respect for the other's acting talents.
- His first TV role was a guest appearance on Sesame Street (1969) in 1969, reciting the alphabet.
- 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 (it grossed $45.3 million in North America alone). Lancaster said that the movie was "the worst piece of junk ever made.".
- 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.
- Attended Elizabeth Taylor's "Commitment to Life" fundraiser on 9/19/85, despite being warned his appearance would resurrect the longtime rumors about his sexuality. At the event Lancaster read out Rock Hudson's letter admitting that he had AIDS.
- Felt intimidated by co-star Montgomery Clift on the set of From Here to Eternity (1953) due to Clift's great talent.
- An unabashed political liberal, chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and an active campaigner for George McGovern in the 1972 Presidential election, Lancaster was one of the 575 people named on President Richard Nixon's 1973 "Enemies List," along with fellow actors Gene Hackman and Paul Newman, "Playboy" magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and TV producer Norman Lear.
- Was a fan of the silent film The Unknown (1927), most likely because it 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.
- He would frequently turn down lifetime achievement awards during the 1980s, saying half-jokingly, "Give them to my good friend Kirk", since he knew Kirk Douglas would be happier in the limelight.
- 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.
- His son Bill Lancaster's screenplay for The Bad News Bears (1976) was based on his experience being coached by his father. Bill had been disabled by polio as a child, and according to friend Joel Douglas--the son of Kirk Douglas--the Tatum O'Neal character in the film, the odd kid out, was Bill. The coach played by Walter Matthau was based on Burt, who was known for his grumpiness.
- 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.
- During World War II he served as a member of the Special Services branch, entertaining troops. He was stationed in Italy for much of the war.
- One of his demands was that he have a high bar set up on sets and locations so he could perform acrobatics and stay in shape.
- He could not attend the funeral of close friend Telly Savalas as he was seriously ill at the time.
- During the Great Depression, he supported himself working as a nude artists model by day and a singing waiter by night.
- According to his wishes, he was buried without any memorial or funeral service. His grave in Westwood Memorial Park has a headstone that simply reads, ""Burt Lancaster, 1913-1994".
- A self-described "Kennedy man", Lancaster dined with President John F. Kennedy at the White House. He delayed the release of Seven Days in May (1964) when the President was assassinated, and later joined fellow liberal activists Robert Ryan and Will Geer in starring in Executive Action (1973), the first Kennedy assassination conspiracy movie. Its "real purpose", Lancaster stated, was "to make people skeptical".
- Voted "Man of the Year" by Aid for AIDS in 1987 for his extensive work on their behalf, including allowing his photograph to be used on their annual Christmas card.
- In order to get his passport renewed in January 1954, he was forced to send a letter to the State Department in which he wrote, "I am not now a Communist. I never been a Communist and I am not in sympathy with the Communist movement".
- His house burned down (as did many others) in the famous Bel Air-Brentwood fire of 11/6/61.
- Son Jimmy was diagnosed as schizophrenic.
- 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.
- He admitted that an odd thing always happened to him on a movie set. He would complain about everything, sometimes very loudly. By the end of the shoot, however, the crews loved him and hated to see him go, despite his complaints. He never understood why that happened.
- Ironically, he was not a very good swimmer despite being an extremely versatile athlete from his days as a circus acrobat, and had to train with a professional swimming coach for his role in The Swimmer (1968), a role he took after asking his daughter Joanna what she thought of the script.
- His son Jimmy was born with a foot deformity and as a baby had to wear a cast that had to be constantly changed. When daughter Joanna was born with the same deformity, they decided not to use a cast but to see if she would outgrow the deformity.
- During the late 1950s John Wayne approached him, suggesting they make a western together. Lancaster laughed off the idea, suggesting they would need Kirk Douglas in the film as well. In reality, Lancaster would not work with Wayne, Hollywood's most prominent Republican activist, who had been actively involved in the anti-Communist hysteria--often termed "witch hunts"--whipped up by Sen. Joseph McCarthy as a founding member and later President of the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Lancaster had only agreed to co-star opposite Gary Cooper, a moderate Republican who gave vague testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947, after Cooper had starred in the anti-McCarthyism western High Noon (1952). Despite this, Lancaster joined a minute's silence for Wayne on 6/11/79 while filming Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980) after Wayne died in Los Angeles.
- 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.
- One of the few humanitarian causes he publicly associated himself with was AIDS research. In 1985 he read out a letter from Rock Hudson announcing he was dying of AIDS, although there was later some controversy as to whether the letter had been written by Hudson or his secretary (in a 2010 Paley Center for Media documentary about gay visibility on TV, writer Bruce Vilanch said that he had written the letter at Hudson's request). This was at a Hollywood dinner to raise awareness, which only a very few stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Burt Reynolds dared attend. In 1988 there was a poster of Lancaster holding a rose and a caption urging people to be careful.
- On the set of Lawman (1971) he grabbed director Michael Winner and threatened to throw him off a mountain on location in Durango, Mexico.
- In 1961 he announced his intention to produce a biopic of Michelangelo Buonarroti, in which he would play the title role and possibly portray the painter as a homosexual. However, he was forced to shelve the project due to the five-month filming schedule on The Leopard (1963). Later, Charlton Heston starred as Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). Heston denied that the painter was gay in his autobiography.
- One of the few actors given the honor of speaking at Martin Luther King's March On Washington in 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.
- Did not start acting until he was 31 years old.
- Turned down the lead in Patton (1970) due to his anti-Vietnam War sympathies, but actively campaigned for the title role in "Patton" screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola's next movie, The Godfather (1972). He offered to do a screen test for the role of Don Corleone, and even though Paramount brass was interested in casting him, Coppola wanted Marlon Brando, and got him after Brando made his own "screen-test" (actually a video Coppola shot of him improvising a makeup for the old Don). Both George C. Scott and Brando won, and refused, Oscars for the roles.
- His performance as J.J. Hunsecker in Sweet Smell of Success (1957) is ranked #76 on" Premiere" Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006.
- To impress customers at Marshall Fields he used to perform handstands on the countertop and cartwheeled down the aisles.
- He was originally cast in Victor Mature's role in The Robe (1953), but backed out due to the Christian theme.
- Rejected a scholarship to play basketball at NYU to become an acrobat for the Kay Brothers' Circus.
- 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.
- On the set of Ulzana's Raid (1972) he told Bruce Davison that he had undergone so much plastic surgery over the years that at the age of 58 the most real thing about him were his eyes. He also advised Davison not to become too publicly involved in the anti-Vietnam movement until he was more established in Hollywood.
- His son, Bill Lancaster, wrote the screenplay for The Bad News Bears (1976).
- Despite his reputation for physical strength and agility and keeping his body in the best shape possible, he was a chain smoker.
- Started out as a circus performer.
- Was forced by United Artists to make four films for $150,000 a picture in the 1960s: The Young Savages (1961), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Train (1964) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965) rather than his normal fee of $750,000, because of cost overruns at his production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, for which he was personally responsible.
- Got into a knife fight while attending DeWitt Clinton High School in New York. He received injuries that kept him bedridden for several months.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content