Burt Lancaster Named the Most Evil Actor of Hollywood's Golden Age
To the public, Burt Lancaster was the square-jawed rebel with a conscience—the guy who stood up to authority and kissed Deborah Kerr on the beach. But behind the scenes, he was nursing a grudge or two. And late in life, he decided to get it all down on paper.
In an unpublished personal document titled The Most Evil of Them All: A Survivor's List, Lancaster reportedly aired out the dirty laundry of old Hollywood. At the top of his hit list? Kirk Douglas.
Now, Douglas and Lancaster weren't strangers. They co-starred in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Seven Days in May, and half a dozen others. On paper, they were friends. But Lancaster claimed the friendship masked something uglier.
He described Douglas as a man "carved from ambition and coated in ice"—someone who would "steal a role from his own son if it meant one more headline."
He accused him of everything from backstabbing and blacklisting to charming people just long enough to ruin them. This wasn't some playful ribbing—this was scorched-earth stuff.
Still, Lancaster couldn't resist twisting the knife with a smile. At events, he'd often introduce Douglas with the line: "Kirk would be the first to admit he is a difficult person… I would be the second."
But time does funny things to old grudges. As they both aged, the rivalry seemed to cool into something more like respect. When Lancaster died in 1994, Douglas publicly mourned the loss, calling it "the passing of a giant."
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And years later, in 2017, Douglas—well into his 100s—reflected on the people he'd lost.
"I miss Burt Lancaster," he said. "We fought a lot, and I miss him a lot."
So maybe Lancaster saw evil. Or maybe he just saw someone a little too much like himself. Either way, the "heroic" age of Hollywood had more knives behind the curtain than on-screen.