Cast & creator
Burl Ives
Best known for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, What's My Line?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. Ives began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942 he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, and then became a major star of CBS radio. In the 1960s he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". A popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s, Ives's best-known film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart (1949) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), as well as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ives is often remembered for his voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which continues to air annually around Christmas.
Also known as: Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives, Бёрл Айвз
50
film credits
30
television credits
80
1940–2019 · acting roles
6.8
average across scored titles
Signature credits
Known for
Across film & television
Filmography (80)
Showing 80 of 80 credits
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Self
1962
The Merv Griffin Show
Self
1962
What's My Line?
Self
1950
Little House on the Prairie
Sam Shelby
1974
Wogan
Self
1982
Tonight Starring Jack Paar
Self
1957
Daniel Boone
Prater Beaseley
1964
The Ed Sullivan Show
Self
1948
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Jonathan J. Dwire
1956
The Name of the Game
Arthur Jellicoe
1968
Night Gallery
Old Man Doubleday
1970
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
Self
1956
The Oscars
Self
1953
Alias Smith and Jones
1971
The Danny Kaye Show
Self
1963
East of Eden
Sam the Sheriff
1955
The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
Self
1969
Roots
Senator Arthur J. Justin
1977
The Bell Telephone Hour
Self
1959The Bell Telephone Hour
Self - Host
1959
The Wonderful World of Disney
1954
The Hollywood Palace
Self
1964
The Johnny Cash Show
Self
1969
Captains and the Kings
Old Syrup
1976
Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story
F.W. Woolworth
1989
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt
1958
The Big Country
Rufus Hannassey
1958
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Sam the Snowman (voice)
1964
Two Moon Junction
Sheriff Earl Hawkins
1988
The Bobby Darin Show
1973
The Ewok Adventure
Narrator (voice)
1984
General Electric Theater
King David
1953General Electric Theater
1953
Day of the Outlaw
Jack Bruhn
1959
O.K. Crackerby
1965
White Dog
Carruthers
1982
The Bold Ones: The Lawyers
Walter Nicholls
1969
So Dear to My Heart
Uncle Hiram Douglas
1948
Our Man in Havana
Dr. Hasselbacher
1960The Smothers Brothers Summer Show
1970
Desire Under the Elms
Éphraïm Cabot
1958
The Spiral Road
Dr. Brits Jansen
1962
Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon
Phineas T. Barnum
1967
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
Judge Bruce Mallory Sullivan
1960
Summer Magic
Osh Popham
1963
Wind Across the Everglades
Cottonmouth
1958
Ensign Pulver
Captain Morton
1964
The McMasters
McMasters
1970
Green Grass of Wyoming
Gus
1948
Just You and Me, Kid
Max
1979
The Sound of Anger
Walter Nichols
1968
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
Big Daddy (archive footage)
1994
Sierra
Lonesome
1950
The Bermuda Depths
Dr. Paulis
1978
The Power and the Prize
George Salt
1956
Station West
Hotel Clerk (uncredited)
1948
Pinocchio
Geppetto
1968
The First Easter Rabbit
Narrator / Older Stuffy (voice)
1976
The Whole World Is Watching
Walter Nichols
1969
Mediterranean Holiday
Narrator (US Version) (voice)
1962
Uphill All the Way
Sheriff John Catledge
1986
A Down Home Country Christmas
Self
1987
The New Adventures of Heidi
Grandfather
1978
Fun in the Big Country
Self
1958
My Music: A Classic Christmas
Self (archive footage)
2019
The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever
T.M. Trask
1970
Tennessee Williams' South
1973
The Brass Bottle
Fakrash
1964
Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera
Himself
1981
The Daydreamer
Father Neptune (voice)
1966
Smoky
Willie
1946
Earthbound
Ned Anderson
1981
Thomas Hart Benton
Himself
1989
The Miracle Worker
Captain Keller
1957
DTV: Golden Oldies
Self
1984
The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde
Narrator (voice)
1968
I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
1963
Baker's Hawk
Mr. McGraw
1976Gifts of an Eagle
1975
Tall Tales
Self
1940