Burl Ives

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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American singer and actor whose work lasted for more than six decades. He began as a traveling folk musician and guitarist and later hosted his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which helped popularize traditional folk songs. In the 1940s he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army on CBS Radio and became a big star on the radio.

In the 1960s Ives moved into country music, scoring hits like A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughin'. He acted in many films, including So Dear to My Heart (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), where he played Big Daddy, and The Big Country (1958), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is also famous for voicing Sam the Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and singing A Holly Jolly Christmas and Silver and Gold, songs that remain holiday favorites.

Ives was born in Hunt City, Illinois. He studied at Eastern Illinois University before pursuing acting and music in New York. He appeared on Broadway in several shows, including The Boys from Syracuse. He was part of the folk group the Almanacs and was briefly criticized during the era of McCarthyism; he later testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which helped him keep working but caused divisions with some fellow artists.

In his later years Ives continued to appear on TV and in films and remained a beloved Christmas figure because of Rudolph. He received several honors, including the Silver Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts and the Order of Lincoln from Illinois.

Ives married Helen Peck Ehrlich in 1945, and they had a son named Alexander in 1949. They divorced in 1971, and he married Dorothy Koster Paul later that year. He lived in Anacortes, Washington, and in New Mexico in his later years. He died of oral cancer in 1995 at age 85 and was buried in Mound Cemetery, Hunt City, Illinois.