Ives, Burl Charles Icle Ivanhoe (1909–1995)

US actor and singer. He was first known as a singer promoting American folk music, and later, with his heavy build and goatee beard, he became an imposing character actor. He played the role of the dying southern patriarch Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on stage in 1955 and in the screen version in 1958.

Ives, born in Hunt, Illinois, dropped out of teacher-training college to become an itinerant worker. Gradually amassing a collection of folk songs, he gained a reputation through radio appearances and records. He made occasional appearances in Broadway shows, becoming known enough to get singing roles in such Hollywood films as Smoky (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948).

His acting career took a more rewarding turn with the role of an avuncular sheriff in East of Eden (1955), and after his stage success as Big Daddy he took a variety of screen roles. These included a vicious land baron in The Big Country (1958), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and an enigmatic German doctor in Our Man in Havana (1959), his own favourite role.

As a singer, he had several minor pop and country-and-western hits, including a version of ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ (1949), ‘Wild Side of Life’ (1952), and ‘A Little Bitty Tear’ (1962).