Actor: Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster was a circus acrobat before acting and the physicality never left, visible in The Crimson Pirate and Trapeze where he performs his own work.

He won Best Actor for Elmer Gantry, playing a fraudulent revivalist preacher, and Sweet Smell of Success gave him a monstrous newspaper columnist in a film that failed and is now considered among the best of the 1950s.

He was among the first stars to form his own production company and used it to make Marty and The Sweet Smell of Success, both commercially risky.

Atlantic City, made at sixty-seven, brought a late nomination for a small performance of considerable delicacy.