Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and film producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Walter Matthau was an American actor, comedian and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie (1966).
Sweet Smell of Success is a 1957 American film noir drama film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, and Martin Milner, and written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, and Mackendrick from the novelette by Lehman. The shadowy noir cinematography filmed on location in New York City was shot by James Wong Howe. The picture was produced by James Hill of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, Joe Frisco, Edith Atwater, David White, and Emile Meyer. The musical score was arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein and the film also features jazz performances by the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Mary Grant designed the costumes.
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.
His Majesty O'Keefe is a 1954 American adventure film directed by Byron Haskin and starring Burt Lancaster. The cast also included Joan Rice, André Morell, Abraham Sofaer, Archie Savage, and Benson Fong. The screenplay by Borden Chase and James Hill was based on the novel of the same name by Laurence Klingman and Gerald Green (1952).
Diana Marie Lynn was an American actress. She built her career by starring in Paramount Pictures films and various television series during the 1940s and 1950s. Two stars on Hollywood Walk of Fame are dedicated to her name.
Vera Cruz is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, featuring Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Jack Elam. Set during the Franco-Mexican War, the film centers on a group of American mercenaries tasked with transporting a large shipment of Imperial gold to the port of Veracruz, but begin to have second thoughts about their allegiances. It was produced by Hecht-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists on 25 December 1954.
Out to Sea is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by Martha Coolidge and written by Robert Nelson Jacobs. It was the final film role of Donald O'Connor, Gloria DeHaven and Edward Mulhare, and the penultimate film of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as a film duo.
Charles K. Feldman was a Hollywood attorney, film producer and talent agent who founded the Famous Artists talent agency. According to one obituary, Feldman disdained publicity. "Feldman was an enigma to Hollywood. No one knew what he was up to – from producing a film to packaging one for someone else."
The Crimson Pirate is a 1952 British-American international co-production Technicolor tongue-in-cheek comedy-adventure film from Warner Bros. produced by Norman Deming and Harold Hecht, directed by Robert Siodmak, and starring Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced with Deming and Hecht. Co-starring in the film are Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok, Leslie Bradley, Torin Thatcher, and James Hayter. The film was shot in Ischia, the Bay of Naples and Teddington Studios. It makes the most of Lancaster's skills as a professional acrobat and his lifelong partnership with Cravat. Critics compared Lancaster favorably with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
Lee Garmes, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. During his career, he worked with directors Howard Hawks, Max Ophüls, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray and Henry Hathaway, whom he had met as a young man when the two first came to Hollywood in the silent era. He also co-directed two films with legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht: Angels Over Broadway and Actor's and Sin.
Harold Adolphe Hecht was an American film producer, dance director and talent agent. He was also, though less noted for, a literary agent, a theatrical producer, a theatre director and a Broadway actor. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Screen Producers Guild.
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is a 1948 American noir-thriller film directed by Norman Foster. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Gerald Butler, it stars Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, and Robert Newton. The film faced minor opposition from fundamentalist groups in the United States and the Commonwealth, with regard to its gory title. In some markets, the film was released under the alternate titles The Unafraid or Blood on My Hands.
Apache is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters and John McIntire. The film was based on the novel Broncho Apache by Paul Wellman, which was published in 1936. It was Aldrich's first color film.
The Front Page is a 1974 American black comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 play of the same name, which inspired several other films, such as the 1931 film "The Front Page," the 1940 comedy film "His Girl Friday," and televised movies and series episodes.
The Devil's Disciple is a 1959 British-American film adaptation of the 1897 George Bernard Shaw play The Devil's Disciple. The Anglo-American film was directed by Guy Hamilton, who replaced Alexander Mackendrick, and starred Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. Mary Grant designed the film's costumes.
Whip Wilson was an American cowboy film star of the late 1940s and into the 1950s, known for his roles in B-westerns.
Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was a production company formed by the actor Burt Lancaster in association with his agent, Harold Hecht, and James Hill. In 1948 Lancaster and Hecht formed Norma Productions, which later became Hecht-Lancaster. Hill joined in the mid-1950s. The company produced some of the most notable American films of the 1950s.
Hecht-Lancaster & Buzzell Music, Inc. was an American music publishing company founded by film producer Harold Hecht, his brother-in-law Loring Buzzell, and Hecht's business partner, actor/producer Burt Lancaster. Hecht-Lancaster & Buzzell Music was solely associated with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). The three partners also founded the music publishing company Calyork Music, Inc., which was solely associated with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Hecht, Lancaster and Buzzell also briefly operated their own record label, Calyork Records, which was active in the late 1950s. Hecht-Lancaster & Buzzell Music, Calyork Music and Calyork Records were divisions of Hecht and Lancaster's film production corporation Norma Productions.
The Kentuckian is a 1954 painting by American artist Thomas Hart Benton. It is based on a scene from the film The Kentuckian, where the backwoodsman Big Eli Wakefield and his son Little Eli encounter a frontier village. The painting belongs to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
