greatest show on Earth…."Lang & Cravat" into their aerial acrobats: somersaults
flips into space without a net, their bodies free &easy; not out of a cannon hurling
thru .the big tops ozone…Heralding our space age.. Spudnik…Challenger
Enterprise Discovery. Mir the Shuttle……"Young men on the flying trapeze" Down to earth artists on the long &short horse, the parallel bars, the high
bar, (the trapeze), the rings, swinging into their kips, their legs extended, shooting straight out.
Their backs arced, arms into an iron cross …"oohs aahs" for a moment
into a single double triple somersault, landing flat footed on the mats, their feet
squared ,arms hurled upward, the apex of the big top’s life,
2
The riveting aerobics of Burton Stephen Lancaster from the East Bronx. Spanish
Harlem, an Apollo born spiritual magician reaching for our Earth bound
Heavens, extending his gig thru unselfishness & sacrifice, thinking
he could outwit the predators and influence human behavior of 20th century
society, never shortchanging the ooohs and aahs of his audience. His saga of a sweeping personal discovery, encompasses 8 decades of
exploration, finding his true self thru his film roles in tinsel town, Italy France. 3 wives 5 children (2 boys,3 girls) business partners, lechers into the money scent, jogging the UCLA (Harry Trotter) Ducky Drake track’s fast lane of Wilt Chamberlain .Woody Strode Jim Brown into a quadruple bi pass, never relinquishing the baton until his 8 decades crossed the finishing line, gasping for
oxygen , the price he paid for journeying into his artistic triumph-the ultimate
cosmic consciousness, realizing his vision into a creative reality he could never
have grasped, like those chalked sweaty palms on the acrobatic rings when
he was first starting out on life….The Second Avenue El, the East Bronx Spanish Harlem, the Union Settlement House, DeWitt Clinton High, NYU, Lang&Cravat
Army Special Services The Royalton Hotel .A short run play….falling in love….a
Mark Hellinger screen test…. Hemingway’s "The killers" 3 "I never let it get to my unconscious mind that all the time, I was trying to be an actor. There was the pattern for me to read, spread out before me. But I wouldn’t. Nobody but nobody can make a good life for himself if he keeps on denying his own pattern, his own drive, his real self." The audition for the role of Lou Pasco, "Atlantic City’s" small time hood, returning for a caper The Steel Pier, Ventnor Avenue was there at the beginning of the
Lang&Cravat acrobats,2 shows a day….2:30…8:30….17 hours a day. "Lou Pasco was Burton Stephen Lancaster as he might have ended up if he had never stepped into that elevator in the Royalton Hotel." 4
Miscalculating the trajectory, the tapestry without a safety net, "do as I say the
code yellow orange. Or you’re toast."… Split second timing, the acrobats
survived for another performance, driving their jalopy 50 miles to the next haunt....barnstorming up&down the East Coast…into Charlie Farrell’s "7th Heaven"
Hurling their bodies... swinging swaying thru those parallel bars, the horsey,the
chinning hi bar, ropes . Double triple back loops, their bodies slashing thru the
invisible, swallowing up their bodies, Lancaster’s "give ‘em the snake eye", the
leaping risk of falling, outweighed any thoughts of bourgeois realities... A confluence of forces "Beating the Devil", Einstein’s eloguence
of gravity&mass, relating to Time.Cambridge’s Sir Isaac Newton relishing his role, throwing the apple into the invisible, its measured descent thru Time vanquished
"Lang&Cravat" meshed their East Bronx Second Avenue 105thStreet reality
scene into a Michael Jordan Scotty Pippen"s zone", their gymnastics
handcuffing them togetherness thru their backyards, the Union Settlement gym.,those two shows daily, into vaudeville acts sandwiched between a dog, a pony, an elephant, 5 horses..
"He sees a reality no one else sees. showing the other characters the better way." Like searching for God at ground zero". Burt dared us to do more, to be better, push harder…We were all his sons..." The scenario was predestined like Macbeth’s witches giving him and his Lady
the "word". The Bard’s gig of ESP, interweaving the fates, beating the
clock ,hawking the odds, at London’s Globe theater. 3 tiered galley
Brian Epstein salivating at his Liverpool furniture store, awaiting the "fab 5" of
Lennon McCartney Harrison, the 6th Beatle . to make their score..at a club in
Hamburg, Germany of all cities.. where the thinking of Attu, the other conspirators of Osama Ben Laden’s Al Quaida…..thought out their murderous 9/11/01 twin towers suicide ,.all in the name of Allah….. Why is it? After the fact, second guessing ourselves. Pearl Harbor, December 7,
1941…..60 years shy of 3 months.. No heroes abounding the reality
scene.Where was Burton Stephen Lancaster aka Burt Lancaster.Nick Cravat,
his East Bronx kimosabi?. The finality of the horror beyond any fantasy of King Kong James Bond.
Godzilla….Not a search engine searching for God at ground zero….3000 missing
Souls. Ives’s "Unanswered question" for a once hedonistic society.
5
"Lives that tell are those that are spread out to the full octave of justice &fairness For the spiritual man to battle for art. How to see what he saw.",,,,
Second Avenue between 104 and 105, the East River at low tide. The Lancaster
Victrola into those Caruso arias…His mother of the Irish noblese oblige, aside
the "reek of toilets out in the hall"… her thrust changing the world. "Burton"
Burton" she screamed, her head out the window…..her post office employed
husband on the stoop, singing "When Irish eyes are smiling….My wild Irish
rose" "Where is that boy?".. Could he be running the Union Settlement House’s
indoor track?. Classes in painting, drama, English as a second language,
hygiene, sewing, dancing?A delivery boy working on tips?, his newspaper route?, shining shoes?. His
homespun wooden box alongside.
6
East Harlem’s Little Italy but a foretaste of "la miserie",the "miserie", the
Southern Italian peasants….His roles in "The Leopard", Bertollucci’s "1900?
Dynamic Little Italy the down to earth American experiment playing out on his
turf, the Little Flower, Fiorello LaGuardia, to become Mayor, parents
Italian Jewish…in between swallows of "Maria Callas forever", tenor John
McCormack……"Burt always lived his life as if it were an Opera" 7 "Burt was a gentle person because he knew he could kill someone"
"You have to fight against being monique. An artifact of a culture’s past, and not
a part of its future. Make it a part of your Soul" said the Name Detective, sitting on the fire escape, his blue eyes on the sprawling smart street scene below…
8
1925, the Bronx Settlement House, Harold Adolph Hecht watching Lancaster 25
years later, matching voice & gesture ,.realizing he was seeing his own future….
The fresh vision of the Russian soul….Maria Ouspenskaya of Konstantin
Stanislavsky"s "Moscow Art Theater"…..The Group Theatre,1931,a
collective.,Repertory training school…Stella Adler, Harold Klurman,Lee
Strassberg,Cheryl Crawford Elia Kazan…Odets "Awake and sing" on the boards. Cagney at the Lennox Settlement House, East Christe Street…Applying Walt Whitman’s "Leaves of Grass"…there was a link..
that went forth every day and the first object he looked upon, that object became
his…into the cycle of years…" 9
Meanwhile across town in the boro of Brooklyn, Harry Houdini’s cousin’s
husband, Moe Horowitz aka Moe Howard, (subsequently "The 3 Stooges") was jumping off a high tower, a Charley’s Aunt, into a postage stamp sized pool.
"Never again", he said, his target like a Sloan Kettering cancer detector,
targeting the tumor, without destroying the good cells.
"I’m in remission," said the Chariot of Fire actor.47 years into his karma, his
most recent role…"Oh yes Bendle" Lord of the Rings" I’m in fine little .But I don ‘t
recommend cancer for anyone." Those sturdy steady eyes ready for anything the planet might dish out...Nothing to lose except your own narcissism, the support system that kept you
groping thru those tearful anguished moments of self pity.. the crucifixion,
before eventful disease and physical decay. Vincent Van Gogh’s life?
10
Bertram Stephen Lancaster of the Union Settlement House rejected their
Scholarship, yet he always needed an audience for expanding the boundaries of
human consciousness. "Giving ‘em the snake eye" into the invisible ,the
unknown..
Fear of failing in lieu of falling from the high bar, .The fear of success
even more so. Discoverers: Columbus Marco Polo Lewis& Clark Jefferson Lincoln FDR Truman LBJ….the vultures like Falstaff Iago dissembling, parasites that they were,
undermining Apollo’s confidence, his grip on his soul. America’s asylums
are not bedlams of silence for no reason at all.. "This is a tragedy worth pondering. It may also lead us to better understand &appreciate the struggles of great artists, as we hope to keep them in good health.. For these are the pioneers of human culture, the men and women who make life worth living for all of us." Seneca’s "De transgllitake Animi". Ostwald’s "Nijinsky". Kate Buford’s "Burt Lancaster"
11
"Making the film became like the film"
"Castle Keep" from a deMaupassant short story "Madamoiselle Fifi"was a ‘noir"
new wave flick, shot outside Belgrade. "Europe is dying" "No Beckman.She’s
dead. That’s why we’re here,’’ says Major Falconer,(Lancaster) Surreal you say like a longshoreman at a union picnic… the delays, the weather
vane changing, the cast restless, the star’s love life off camera more emotional
than the film itself.. Blowing up the castle with all its art works, before the Nazis
brutalized the "Mademoiselle Fife" theme. Needing two powder kegs because of
the climatic changes.,the cinematographer from Truffault’s "400 blows" was
going bananas… "Cool" you say…right you are. Does the scene still work? Does Major Falconer
dominate it?
"iI Postimo", the Postman’s director, dissected the blueprint for 12 months
at his London film school.. "You have to be intransigent" said the Leopard’s director, Visconti. ,bringing out
the best in you. A generous actor off camera, his eye contact with
his collective alter egos, remember the eyes and gesture technique, raising
the bar…a highly competitive man he sometimes blamed his :"companion" for
mistakes that were really his.. the "Waterloo" of being intransigent.,his wave-
length into Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s tempi and melodies.,his formative
creative strengths into the correlation of expansion, notwithstanding the box ffice receipts. He found his mission in life like a 14 year old trampoline artist….But can he play
the clarinet like Benny Goodman, balancing his topsy turvy across the high wire.
"What the Hell is Kant’s ‘categorical imperative"? he shouted, hurling that
nobles oblige of curiosity in your face, the street smarts intellectual he
was, light years ahead of portraying Hemingway’s Swede in his short story "The
Killers", Hellinger subsequently rehearsing, starring him off for 8
decades..
"Remember there’s a little clock inside of you and a little clock inside of men. We got to keep those clocks ticking alongside of each other. "The higher the act, the easier it gets. The higher you get, the tighter the wire can be stretched. .It gets so tight that its solid. Aiming for success is the secret, blocking out the terror. of falling " Mantra or not, eighty years, and still no quadruple off the high bar... How do you
like those bananas. dear reader? You can’t eat mantras…but when you’re 19 years old into the futuro, you thrive on it….. 12
When his mother Lizzie had her cerebral hemorrage, the family buried her in
Brooklyn’s Cypress Hills, the same resting place for Mae West , her mother,
Their own pilgrimage thru the landscape.
"The hole she left behind in her son’s mind and heart was never filled. .She was buried in his "Field of Dreams", her son’s last flick, she being part of his big eclectic Irish Soul….she giving him a different idea of himself... mopped hair and all, tumbling thru gymnastics, scoring 12 points on the high school’s varsity…like 50 in the 21st century….scratching into Nick (Cuccia) Cravat…"that horror Frankenstein is more than what it says .""Right Burt, you would know. Telling a story with the monster’s body…"You’re right .."Nickodemus"…Mary Shelly’s monster is an allegory..the two became ‘Lang&Cravat’, running off to join the circus..."Nihil sinc labore.…"Blood gall and salt burning within our spindly frames" 13
"A perfectionist in complete control of his vision. For the first time in his life he sincerely believes he can make rain, really make rain. And for the first time in his life, he really can. Remember the "Rainmaker"s past life was in an ancestor’s service, the forces of Charlemagne."
"You’re marvelous folks," said Security into his role at Coney Island Hospital’s
pharmacy, maintaining order, keeping the numbered denizens in line. his
expansiveness into Robert Cummings passing at 82. He remembered splitting
out from Midwood High for the Elm, and Hitchcock"s "Saboteur", Cummings not
yet into his 5 marriages and a love affair with vitamins &minerals.
Gone at 82,he played the white hat, his hand dangling the black hat’s hand, from
the Statute of Liberty’s torch. Similar to the suspense laden models in Harold Lloyd’s dangling moment off big Ben’s hour hand….the :"39 Steps", Mister Telepathy on stage, the bomb’ssecrets within his photographic memory….Joel McCrea’s "Foreign Correspondent", the kidnapped Prime Minister, Albert
Basserman tied up in the innards of a Dutch windmill.
14
"Com’on peoples, none of this meanness today. Stay in line, no pushing, shoving,"said thr voice of authority at Coney Island hospital.
"War paint on or not, ladies.. I don’t want to put you at the back," feeling his
chemistry with his audience. He should be paying the loony bin for tolerating
him, letting him be himself….a graying panther into being & becoming a leading
man, a Charlie Farrell "Star is born".. Burt Lancaster would approve he thought. Wasn’t he like the East Bronx’s
Irishman. A nonconformist into opera and (Beverly Sills) Bubbles Siverman, once of Kings Highway, a stone’s throw from the pharmacy.. Lancaster as the "Swede" in Hemingway -Hellinger’s "Killers".- the loner destined
for his exit, waiting for his "Appointment in Samara" at the diner…. Wasn’t he a circus trapeze gymnastic genius, always trying to
elevate…transcend our Earthly shortcomings....
15
Hellinger, a short story scribe himself becoming a producer, living on North LaBrea, his Ziegfield chorus line frau, Gladys, thinking life in tinsel town- rubbing elbows with the hoi poloi- was the Nirvana…… Thru 60 flicks, a son who stressed out, Brentwood’s Sawtelle.,an ex mistress
during his "Elmer Gantry" yesterdays, identifying with William Randolph Hearst,
&his paramour, Miriam Davies .His Pirate roles swashbuckling like Errol Flynn’s
"Captain Blood" "Field of Dreams" as Doc, the rookie old timer…."Atlantic City"
as the world weary minor Mafiaso…
16
In Mexico with Sam Peckinpaugh, Lee Marvin, William Holden…"The Professionals"..….."Judgment at Nuremberg", Brooklyn’s Spencer Tracy, "Birdman from Alcatraz", specs on, caring for the limpy birds from the ledge outside his cell, those formative years of the East Bronx, homing pigeons on the tenement roofs… "Brute Force" the same genre.. "Gunfight at OK Corral", "Sweet smell of success"
"The Leopard" "Conversation pieces" "1900" "Come back, little Sheba", costarred with Shirley Booth…."I can see the wheels turning. Your brain working.. He called me at 3 in the morning to explain a scene. Don’t sell him short. One day he’ll be a great actor." "Trapeze" doing his own high wire acrobatics "Separate Tables" "From here to Eternity" "Jim Thorpe" all American.
17
"You pushing in front, lady? Where’s your number? Naah, you got an easy hour wait. Doc Schacter is doing his best, ain’t he? You know his coz, the NFL football Monday night ref? It wont do you any good Even if you knew Osama Ben Laden Saddam Hussein? Case closed!" Burt Lancaster in Los Alamitos Intensive Care. Admitted into Emergency, one
side paralyzed, speechless."The Swimmer", a Westchester fantasy on
conformity….The Oscar for his interpretation, the Evangelistic dialectic minister,
Sinclair Lewis nodding approval if he was up &alive,.breathing the Tuscany
Air of Italy..18
Security murmured a silent prayer for the Bronx born Lancaster. "Lady I told you once…"There’s 500 humans ahead of you.," into his role as a volunteer at the Coney Island hospital pharmacy, his Joe E. Brown of a mouth, opening wide across the Belt Parkway, the Mitchell Lama projects, Abraham Lincoln High School, Russian (Ocean) Parkway, Brighton Beach baths, Coney Island boardwalk (where Dick Mohan once of Pacoima Jr High library, Valley College in San Fernando Valley was faded to meet his old kimosabi, Irv Honer, also a retired school librarian, Northridge, Studio City)……Bay 7, the parachute jump, the Cyclone with Jack "10 minutes of fame", the Hack, Workman’s Circle, Nathans, Stillwell Surf Avenue, the acquarium, the Atlantic Ocean….. "Yodelayaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"
19
"An exquisite fatalism about life &death. History, his own class, his own person"
Lancaster like Visconti’s "Leopard", waited for that crouched power to inhabit
him. akin the Phantom’s panther of King Features "what fools these mortals be"
"I had the luck to have an obedient body. Much like a prince, "acing" his roles.,
,testing his opposition, finding their breaking point." A gattopardo of Riccio on the
Adriatic, "highly connected to the Centuries and the floor of time" "An idealized superior human being" a searching Irish shaman, being put into History. "A new nation filled with restless humans looking for roots, certainty. A leader who could direct it, .no matter it has no past… So much to find the answers, to make it all add up."
"I think I’ll get a "Rose Tattoo"…lay it on me," his down to earth soul crossing
myth &reality, law &lawlessness, greed &avarice… "He got the violin, "he told his congregation, like it was a Mahler ‘Symphony of a
thousand’, in E flat. "Repeat Repeat ‘.and I got the money…save me save me."
"And the first thing I knew he put the fear of God in me." says Lulu Raines, into
an Elmer Gantry slam dunk.….like an American hero evolving into his identity,
telling his story back to the audience, who in turn saw its own story…..
20
Second Avenue El, Lizzie, his mother sharing what little they had. Inviting an
Afrp Americam neighbor in for tea…."She was my Bible" her son confessed, sprawled out on the floor, the victrolo spinning out the Caruso arias...
day, 17 hours a day, driving 50 miles a day.…..Lang& Cravat’s" first pay check
three $ a week…syncopated routines, each working from opposite ends of the
bar, alternating back &forth, the "dance of the circus" Full twisting giant swings around,, doubles triples,,, fly overs …Miss a cue without any saving grace of a net….,."We learned everything about tragedy. And we learned about heart.", a precursor about the way audiences look at society. His first wife "the only woman in the circus who could go beyond bar tricks. Her mother &sister were like the topsy twins doing somersaults. The Ernsts…whether any relation to FDR’s "fireside chats" scribe Morrie? later the PR rep for the Dominican Republic playboy Ambassador, Portfiro Ruberoso…husband to be of the richest woman, heiress to the once Woolworth 5&10’s,Barbara Hutton, Archie Leach aka Cary Grant’s first or second?
A "Billy Budd"s opera yearnings, that Second Avenue East Bronx
voice…Rudyard Kipling’s Lord Douglas, a Lancaster ancestor, who perished in
the 1914 war. May have had the same gene..not the gene for the screen
"Sound of Music" director, Robert Wise attributed to the "Swede" when he first
heard that sound, .come from his Irish East Bronx larynx.
Not as crackling as Kings Highway’s Blossom Silverman, Beverly Sills. …her
mother like Lizzie, instilling the work ethic very early, extending their heir’s
reaches into the gold ring on the Coney Island Steeplechase Luna Park Santa
Monica pier merry go round.
"Going my way" was Der Bingle’s modus operandi, "Strangers on the train" Ole blue eyes crooning his chemistry for Sergeant Warden (Lancaster) "From here to Eternity" like kindred souls, merging their East Coast fates, destinies.. 22
A parallel in Jimmy Cagney’s 125th Street origin, Bogy’s ascent into those gangster roles…Dead End Angels with Dirty Faces G Men Public Enemy Number One…High Sierra …"do as I say, or you’re toast"
Archie Leach marketing Hebrew National franks and 50 cent kegs of beer, an acrobat himself, pitching his wares from stilts on the Coney Island boardwalk.
Jimmy Durante’s nasal sounding voice as the soundtrack "Sleepless in Seattle", Tom Hanks replicating the Grant role, Archie Leach meeting Deborah Kerr, atop the Empire State observation Or Windows on the World before the crazed gangsters from the Hamburg German cell planned hari kari, mowing down 3000. Human beings 9/11/01…..the nation’s intelligence system flawed, in not capturing their suicidal intent, murderous thinking brain waves. The friggen cunning of our global village, the conspirators original sin in our
midst. Yet it was always here, their DNA like encrypted E mail escaping our
electrifying cosmos.of King Kong James Bond flicks were but fantasies. A tell tale
grounded in Reality, an "escape" for those 3000 ambushed souls. A psychedelic induced trance of Berlioz’s "Symphonique Fantastic", a Turkish inspired theme… moments before the Sultan orders "Take him to the gallows" A la 21st century tranquilizers, endless story conferences, "Sex in theCity" confabs, "The Sopranos" light years ahead with the cable, …but the real world ah that’s another disaster waiting to happen…. 23
"A joy in the disclipine of performing… a glandular sensitivity…"y’ know what I’m trying to say….I give ‘em the old snake eye". His own visceral recognition of greatness.. his" Settlement House vision of the glorious city of the Light". "…Once you hit a note of truth, you can hear a bell ring" Whether it’s the notes of Goethe’s "Faust in his quest for salvation or Bernie
Williams hitting a two run homer in the bottom of the 8th against the Angels of
Anaheim, Gene Autry’s old franchise, the first game of the division playoffs in the
House that Ruth Built, the Yankee Stadium, within a schmaltz scent from the
Second Avenue sounds of the Lancasters, y’ know what I’m trying to say.
ENTER TO GROW IN BODY MIND AND SPIRIT DEPART TO SERVE BETTER YOUR GOD COUNTRY AND YOUR FELLOW MAN
Not the lobby inscription of Burt Lancaster’s all male Dewitt Clinton High but the
Tubby Ross’s Midwood High School built across the East River
in Brooklyn, across Harry Gideonse’s leadership college on land granted by the
Dutch family Van Nuys, the same Van Nuys who settled in the San Fernando
Valley of Southern California, folks..
The East Bronx’s denizen’s motto, his creed if you will, his gigs mission sounds
too maukish like an over worn cliché. "Still evil abounds".
9/11 the Holocaust… people can’t rage at the Universe so they turn on one
another…smouldering like lava raging out of a volcano…….. Lancaster knew he was growing old, the line being "when your back goes out
more often than you do…" but he wouldn’t go peacefully, Dylan’s "do not go quietly into the dark." Reminding us even more so when your life is evocative on the big screen, your own vanity of a photogenic image, like an instant mirror in the cosmos, a dream going down hill? His Elmer Gentry dialogue reflection of his real life…"I want you so bad Sister Sharon, I’m in pain half the time. I’d like to tear those holy wings off you and make a real woman out of you. I’d show you what Heaven’s like… no golden stairways, or harp music…or silvery clouds. Just ecstasy comin’ and goin’…when are you going to make up your mind to take it?" Meanwhile across the Hudson, New Jersey was having its comeuppance with their Senatorial race, the incumbent dropping out for ethical compromises, while the diva of the kitchen, the Martha Stewart, was having her own table of big dough explored by the same Congressional investigators that New Jersey Supreme Court 9 judges wrote was credible…the Republicans into their gig, appealing to the big Supreme Court…(Hold ‘yer breathe, folks….) History repeats itself, the Florida fiasco, the Court by one human, decided Florida’s presidential was not rigged for Jed Bush’s brother……the question is ah that is the weasel word… will it replicate itself?…"later gater" 2 party system goes to the Soul of the Democracy...Ernest Borgnine "Marty" cast in "From here to Eternity" passed away yesterday in Studio City,Ca at the age of 95.
(part I, Burt Lancaster, "An American Life", Kate Buford)
