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Burt Lancaster: An American Life
Author(s): Kate Buford (Author)
- Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
- Publication Date: 1 Mar. 2000
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 447 pages
- ISBN-10: 0679446036
- ISBN-13: 9780679446033
Book Description
From his teenage career as a circus acrobat to his celebrated Hollywood roles, Burt Lancaster’s fascinating life is laid bare in this new biography that draws on the personal recollections of the actor’s widow, friends, and colleagues. 25,000 first printing.
Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
handsome, witty, fanatically loyal, charming, scary, and intensely sexual, Burt Lancaster was the quintessential bête du cinéma, one of Hollywood’s great stars. He was, as well, an intensely private man, and he authorized no biographies in his lifetime. Kate Buford is the first writer to win the cooperation of Lancaster’s widow, close friends, and colleagues, and her book is a revelation.
Here is Lancaster the man, from his teenage years, bolting the Depression-era immigrant neighborhood of East Harlem where he grew up for the life of a circus acrobat — then the electric New York theater of the 1930s, then the dying days of vaudeville. We see his production company — Hecht-Hill-Lancaster — become the biggest independent of the 1950s, a bridge between the studio era and modern filmmaking. With the power he derived from it we see him gain a remarkable degree of control, which he used to become the auteur of his own career. His navigation through the anti-Communist witch
About the Author
Kate Buford has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition since 1994 and has written for the New York Times and Architectural Digest. She is the author of several articles on the movies for Film Comment, including the first retrospective analysis of Burt Lancaster’s career — the project that launched this biography. She has two children, Lucy and Will, and lives in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.
