Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen Lancaster worked as a circus acrobat in the 1930s before World War II redirected him. At 32, a Broadway play caught a Hollywood agent's eye, and his 1946 debut in The Killers with Ava Gardner launched both careers. The 1950s brought From Here to Eternity (eight Oscars, his first nomination) and a production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, that let him swing through Trapeze on old acrobat skills and brood through Sweet Smell of Success. He won the Academy Award in 1960 for Elmer Gantry's charlatan revivalist, then pivoted: a Nazi in Judgment at Nuremberg, a prisoner in Birdman of Alcatraz, Visconti's Leopard prince in Italy, a rogue general in Seven Days in May. After Airport in 1970 and a cult-classic turn in The Swimmer, he found a late surge with 1980's Atlantic City - his fourth Oscar nod, second BAFTA win. A 1990 stroke ended it; he died four years later, his last role a small-town doctor in Field of Dreams.