Kate Buford collection of Burt Lancaster records

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: 2583

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection consists of U.S. State Department Passport File and an FBI file on American actor Burt Lancaster. These records were amassed by the United States government investigating Lancaster’s assumed Communist activities. Records were gathered by Lancaster’s biographer Kate Buford through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Originally part of the Ethel Barrymore Memorial Theatre Arts Collection at the University of Southern California Library 100 Series.

Dates

Creation: 1963 - 1967

Conditions Governing Access

Advance notice required for access.

Rights Statement for Archival Description

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Cinematic Arts Library at ctlibarc@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Cinematic Arts Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Biographical / Historical

Burton Lancaster (1913-1994) was an American actor and producer. Lancaster along with Harold Hecht, and James Hill, started the production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, making most of their films in the 1950s. Lancaster won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Elmer Gantry (1960). Lancaster was a vocal supporter of progressive and liberal political causes. He frequently spoke out in support of minorities. As a result, he was often a target of FBI investigations. He was named in President Richard Nixon’s 1973 “Enemies List”.