THE BIG COUNTRY

(Western)

Burl Ives won his Supporting Oscar for playing a tough cattle baron involved in a war over water rights in THE BIG COUNTRY.

Burl Ives (1909 - 95)

Burl Ives was one out of six children, born of Scotch-Irish parents on a farm in Jasper County, Illinois. Growing up Burl's two loves were music and football. Burl Ives enrolled in Eastern Illinois State Teacher's College in 1927 intending to become a football coach, but in 1930 he dropped out and then spent the next few years roaming the country, working odd jobs and as a street singer. In 1940, Burl Ives got a job with CBS radio popularizing the many folk songs he learned on his wanderings.

Burl Ives made his mark playing the character, 'Big Daddy', in his 1938 Broadway debut in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , a role that Ives played again in the 1958 film version. Burl began his movie career (spanning four decades in over 30 pictures)as a singing cowboy in the 1946 film, Smokey.

Besides winning an Oscar for his supporting role in The Big Country, Burl Ives has also recorded 30 albums for Decca and another dozen for Columbia, having many hits on both the popular and country charts. At the age of 80, Burl Ives retired from show business but kept singing for charity benefits up until his death in 1995.

Burl Ives' other films include:

SMOKY
EAST OF EDEN
DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
OUR MAN IN HAVANA
THE BRASS BOTTLE
ROCKET TO THE MOON
BAKER'S HAWK
JUST YOU AND ME, KID
UPHILL ALL THE WAY
TWO MOON JUNCTION

Burl Ives' television credits include:

O.K. CRACKERBY (65)
THE BOLD ONES (69)
RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (1962 christmas special)