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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American folk singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television.
He began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularised traditional folk-songs. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, and then became a major star of CBS radio. Under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Ives co-operated by naming names, and became temporarily unpopular in showbusiness. In the 1960’s he sang many country hits such as A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughing, while expanding his film career, notably as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Ives was a lifelong supporter of the Boy Scouts of America.
Ives was born near Hunt City, an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois near Newton, Illinois, to Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" (née White) (1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma. His father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day Ives was singing in the garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers' reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad "Barbara Allen" and impressed both his uncle and the audience.[1]
Ives had a long-standing relationship with the Night Gallery, in which his character seeks a gruesome revenge for the murder of his granddaughter.
Ives and Helen Peck Ehrlich were divorced in February 1971.[24] Ives then married Dorothy Koster Paul in London two months later.[25] In their later years, Ives and Dorothy lived in a waterfront home in Anacortes, Washington, in the Puget Sound area, and in Galisteo, New Mexico, on the Turquoise Trail. In the 1960s, he had another home just south of Hope Town on Elbow Cay, a barrier island of the Abacos in the Bahamas.
In honor of Ives' influence on American vocal music, on October 25, 1975, he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit.[26] This award, initiated in 1964, was "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year who has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."
When America Sings opened in 1974, Ives voiced the main host, Sam Eagle, an Audio-Animatronic.
Ives lent his name and image to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "This Land Is Your Land – Keep It Clean" campaign in the 1970s. He was portrayed with the program's fictional spokesman, Johnny Horizon.
Burl Ives was seen regularly in television commercials for Luzianne tea for several years during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was the company's commercial spokesman.
In 1989, Ives officially announced his retirement from show business on his 80th birthday. However, he continued to do occasional benefit concert performances on his own accord until 1993.
Ives was a pipe smoker. (The cover of his first album showed a pipe and a fishing hat with the words "Burl Ives" in between.) He also smoked cigars. In the summer of 1994, he was diagnosed with oral cancer. After several unsuccessful operations, he decided against further surgery. He fell into a coma and died from the disease on April 14, 1995, at the age of 85, at his home in Anacortes, Washington.[27] He was buried in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.[28][29]
Ives' Broadway career included appearances in The Boys From Syracuse (1938–39), Heavenly Express (1940), This Is the Army (1942), Sing Out, Sweet Land (1944), Paint Your Wagon (1951–52), and Dr. Cook's Garden (1967). His most notable Broadway performance (later reprised in a 1958 movie) was as "Big Daddy" Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955–56).
Ives' autobiography, The Wayfaring Stranger, was published in 1948. He also wrote or compiled several other books, including Burl Ives' Songbook (1953), Tales of America (1954), Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling, and Fishing (1956), and The Wayfaring Stranger's Notebook (1962).
Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold" became Christmas standards after they were first featured in the 1964 CBS-TV presentation of the Rankin and Bass stop-motion animated family special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Johnny Marks had composed the title song (originally an enormous hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry) in 1949, and producers Rankin and Bass retained him to compose the TV special's soundtrack. Ives voiced Sam the Snowman, the banjo-playing "host" and narrator of the story, explaining how Rudolph used his "nonconformity," as Sam refers to it, to save Christmas from being cancelled due to an impassable blizzard. The following year, Ives rerecorded all three of the Johnny Marks hits which he had sung in the TV special, but with a more "pop" feel. He released them all as singles for the 1965 holiday season, capitalizing on their previous success.
Ives had several film and television roles during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962, he starred with Rock Hudson in The Spiral Road, which was based on a novel of the same name by Jan de Hartog. He also starred in Disney's Summer Magic with Hayley Mills, Dorothy McGuire and Eddie Hodges, and a score by Robert and Richard Sherman. In 1964, he played the genie in the movie The Brass Bottle with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden.
In the 1960s, Ives began singing country music with greater frequency. In 1962, he released three songs that were popular with both country music and popular music fans: "A Little Bitty Tear," "Call Me Mister In-Between," and "Funny Way of Laughing."
Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, California, in East of Eden; "Big Daddy" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; roles in Desire Under the Elms; Wind Across the Everglades; The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; Ensign Pulver, the sequel to Mister Roberts; and Our Man in Havana, based on the Graham Greene novel.
Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet Red Channels and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties.[22] In 1952, he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and agreed to testify. Ives' statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies. But, it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Pete Seeger, who accused Ives of naming names and betraying the cause of cultural and political freedom to save his own career. Ives countered by saying he had simply stated what he had always believed. Forty-one years later, Ives, by then confined to a wheelchair, reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together.[23]
Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives' voice ... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people."[21]
His version of the 17th-century English song "Lavender Blue" became his first hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its use in the 1949 film, So Dear to My Heart.
In 1947, Ives recorded one of many versions of "The Blue Tail Fly", but paired this time with the popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene and LaVerne). Only Bing Crosby sold more Decca Records than the sisters in the 1940s. The flip side of the record would be a fast-paced "I'm Goin' Down the Road". Ives hoped the trio's success would help the record sell well, and indeed it did, becoming both a best-selling disc and a Billboard hit.[20]
In 1946, Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film Smoky.[19]
On December 6, 1945, Ives married 29-year-old script writer Helen Peck Ehrlich.[18] Their son Alexander was born in 1949.
In early 1942, Ives was drafted into the Jack Webb's TV show Dragnet, and Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H). In December 1943, Ives went to New York to work for CBS radio for $100 a week.[17] In 1944, he recorded The Lonesome Train, a ballad about the life and death of Abraham Lincoln, written by Earl Robinson (music) and Lampell (lyrics).
In June 1941, promptly after the American People's Mobilization. Ives and the Almanacs rerecorded several of their songs to reflect the group's new stance in favor of US entry into the war. Among them were "Dear Mr. President" and "Reuben James" (the name of a US destroyer sunk by the Germans before US entry into the war).
In 1940, Ives began his own radio show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as "Foggy Dew" (an English/Irish folk song), "The Blue Tail Fly" (an old minstrel tune now better known as "Jimmy Crack Corn"), and "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (an old hobo song). He was also associated with the Almanac Singers (Almanacs), a folk-singing group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, Millard Lampell and Pete Seeger. The Almanacs were active in the American Peace Mobilization (APM), an antiwar group opposed to American entry into World War II and Franklin Roosevelt's pro-Allied policies. They recorded such songs as "Get Out and Stay Out of War" and "Franklin, Oh Franklin".[16]
Ives traveled about the U.S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing "Foggy Dew", which the authorities decided was a bawdy song.[14] Around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University).[15] During the late 1930s, Ives also attended the Juilliard School in New York.
On July 23, 1929, in Richmond, Indiana, Ives did a trial recording of "Behind the Clouds" for the Starr Piano Company's Gennett label, but the recording was rejected and destroyed a few weeks later. In later years, Ives did not recall having made the record.[13]
From 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (now Eastern Illinois University) in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football.[9] During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf, when he suddenly realized he was wasting his time. As he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him.[10] Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout.[11] Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward.[12]
[8] Ives was also the narrator of a 28-minute film about the 1977 National Jamboree. In the film, which was produced by the Boy Scouts of America, Ives "shows the many ways in which Scouting provides opportunities for young people to develop character and expand their horizons."[7], teaching, etc.Scouting There is a 1977 sound recording of Ives being interviewed by Boy Scouts at the National Jamboree at Moraine State Park, Pennsylvania; on this tape he also sang and talked about [6].Oak Ridge Boys Ives often performed at the quadrennial Boy Scouts of America jamboree, including the 1981 jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where he shared the stage with the [5]
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