Burl Ives Biography

Burl Ives

The beloved folk singer of such children's classics as “I Know an Old Lady (Who Swallowed A Fly),” Burl Ives spent the 1930s traveling the United States in search of musical material, journeys he recalled in his memoir Wayfaring Stranger (1940). Ives first beguiled New York theatergoers in I Married an Angel (1938) and went on to make Broadway history, originating roles such as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In the 1950s and 1960s he appeared in numerous movies, earning an Academy Award for his performance as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958).