Once called by poet Carl Sandburg "the mightiest ballad singer of this or any other century," Burl Ives grew up the youngest of six children born to a Scotch-Irish farming family in Jasper County, Illinois. As a very young boy, he sang in church and at town gatherings and listened closely to the songs of his pipe-smoking grandmother who taught him many of his famous ballads. He played fullback in high school and was planning to become a football coach when wanderlust overcame him during his senior year of college. Dropping out, he grabbed his guitar and hit the road, collecting experiences and singing with the likes of Josh White and Woody Guthrie before taking his music to New York City at the end of the Depression. There the imposing bear of a man (6'2", 270-lbs.) began his acting career, appearing on Broadway in "The Boys From Syracuse" (1938), "This Is the Army" (1942) and "Sing Out Sweet Land" (1944), among other productions. He made his feature debut in "Smoky" (1946), singing such staples from his folk repertoire as "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" and "Blue-Tail Fly".
Ives starred on Broadway as Cap'n Andy in the 1954 Broadway revival of "Showboat" and the following year created his signature role of Big Daddy Pollitt for the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tim Roof", helmed by Elia Kazan, who also directed him as Sam the sheriff in the feature "East of Eden" (1955). After playing himself in Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957), he enjoyed his peak year in the business, appearing in four substantial features in 1958. He portrayed Ephraim Cabot, the cuckold of Sophia Loren, in "Desire Under the Elms" and Cottonmouth, the outlaw hunter of Nicholas Ray's "Wind Across the Everglades". He also reprised Big Daddy for Richard Brooks' film version of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his rough but fair-minded ranch owner Rufus Hannassey in William Wyler's "The Big Country". Other memorable feature roles from this period include his villainous turn in Andre de Toth's "Day of the Outlaw" (1959) and his stint as the captain in "Ensign Pulver" (1964).
Though often the big baddie for film, his troubadour persona was just the opposite as he earned the reputation of a sweet, gentle giant, singing songs like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "I Gave My Love a Cherry". He narrated the Christmas cartoon perennial "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (NBC, 1964), singing its title song and others, and became more recognizable for his TV work during subsequent decades. His TV series debut came as Prater Beasley in NBC's "Daniel Boone", and he played the title role of the short-lived ABC series "O.K. Crackerby" (1965-66), as well as Walter Nichols in NBC's "The Lawyers", seen as one-third of the rotating segments of "The Bold Ones" (1969-72). He acted in two landmark miniseries, "Captains and Kings" (NBC, 1976) and "Roots" (ABC, 1977), and wrapped up his small-screen career as F W Woolworth in the miniseries "Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story" (NBC, 1987). Ives continually appeared in concerts around the world, singing for Golda Meir in Israel, a US President in Alaska and Queen Elizabeth II in a special command performance.