An American folk singer and actor, Burl Ives began as a traveling troubadour before becoming a popular figure of radio, records and the screen. In cinema he left his mark as the patriarch Big Daddy in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (1958), and that same year he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for 'The Big Country'. He also took part in 'Desire Under the Elms' and lent his warm voice to Sam the Snowman in the television Christmas classic 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' (1964). His deep, affable timbre, as recognizable singing as acting, defined a career poised between traditional music and Hollywood.
Burl Ives
Oscar winner · Actor
85 years (Jun 14, 1909 – Apr 14, 1995)Hunt City, USAHunt City, Illinois, USA
An American folk singer and actor, Burl Ives began as a traveling troubadour before becoming a popular figure of radio, records and the screen. In cinema he left his mark as the patriarch Big Daddy in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (1958), and that same year he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for 'The Big Country'. He also took part in 'Desire Under the Elms' and lent his warm voice to Sam the Snowman in the television Christmas classic 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' (1964). His deep, affable timbre, as recognizable singing as acting, defined a career poised between traditional music and Hollywood.
1909-06-14 · Hunt City, USAHunt City, Illinois, USA
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.