Burl Ives
June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995
Perhaps best known as the narrator and voice of the snowman in the Holiday classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Burl Ives was also an accomplished folks singer whose catalog includes many American standards. He was also an author and Academy Award-winning actor for his supporting role in Our Man In Havana. When Ives was in his second year of college, he had an epiphany while sitting in his English glass. School was a waste of his time, he thought, so out the door he went, never to look back. Except perhaps, when that same school named a building after him some six decades later. Ives spent most of the ’30s traveling around the U.S. performing for change whenever he needed funds to move on. In the ’40s he went to work for CBS Radio who gave him his own program where he performed traditional folk songs for his loyal fans. From there he moved on to acting, winning roles in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, East of Eden and of course, Our Man in Havana. In the ’50s he got blacklisted for alleged Communist ties, so he falsely ratted out Pete Seeger and others as Communists in a deal that got him back to work. And not surprisingly, he was shunned by Seeger and the folk community for many years to come. In 1964, Ives’ warm and gentle voice starred in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. His “Holly Jolly Christmas” from that program is one of the most popular Christmas songs of all times. Ives died of cancer at the age of 85.
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