Burl Ives

Burl Ives
Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Born	Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (1909-06-14)June 14, 1909 Hunt City, Illinois, U.S.
Died	April 14, 1995(1995-04-14) (aged 85) Anacortes, Washington, U.S.
Burial place	Mound Cemetery, Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois
Occupations	Musician singer actor author
Years active	1929–1993
Spouses	Helen Peck Ehrlich ​ ​ (m. 1945; div. 1971)​ Dorothy Koster Paul ​ (m. 1971)​
Children	1
Awards	Silver Buffalo Award Order of Lincoln Academy Award
Musical career
Genres	Country music blues folk Christmas traditional pop
Instrument(s)	Vocals guitar banjo
Musical artist
Military career
Service/branch	United States Army Army Air Forces
Years of service	1942–1943

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, singer and actor with a career that spanned more than six decades.

Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching 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 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'". Ives was also a popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s. His film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), as well as the role of Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the film noir, Day of the Outlaw (1959).

Ives is often associated with the Christmas season. He did voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Ives also worked on the special's soundtrack, including the songs "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", both of which continue to chart annually on the Billboard holiday charts into the 2020s.^[1]