BURL IVES

The very first celebrity I was aware of meeting was Burl Ives,  the rotund, goateed folk singer who, though I didn't know it at the time, was also a movie actor and writer. I was around seven and only knew him from the records my folks played over and over. They had taken me to an Ives concert in Fort Worth, but the only thing I remember was walking up to the stage and shaking hands with him after his performance.  Exciting stuff for a kid. 
     Ives recorded over 30 albums for Decca and another dozen for Columbia. In 1964 he was singer-narrator of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, an endlessly repeated Christmas TV special.       
     His Broadway debut was in 1938, though he is best remembered for creating the role of Big Daddy in the 1950's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" when it ran on Broadway through the early '50s. His four-decade, 30+ movie career began with Ives playing a singing cowboy in "Smoky" (1946) and reached its peak with (again) his role as Big Daddy role in the movie version of "Cat" and winning an Oscar for best supporting actor in "The Big Country." both in 1958. Ives officially retired from show business on his 80th birthday in 1989 and died in 1995.