Well-Schooled by Burt

Susan King’s revealing article about Burt Lancaster, a man with, among other traits, “a hair-trigger temper” and “huge flaws,” reminds me of an incident in my family that reveals another side of this complex man and star (“Bittersweet Smell of Success,” April 23).

Back in the 1940s, my little cousin Ann’s elementary school class had been invited to come backstage and visit Lancaster, who was publicizing one of his earliest movies by doing a mini-circus act on stage between shows. Ann, one of the few Jewish kids in her school in lower Manhattan, had always felt like an outsider, and she assumed that someone as exalted as Lancaster couldn’t possibly have any interest in her. So that day, she stayed home.

Somehow, perhaps through a sympathetic teacher, Lancaster heard about this and sent my cousin an invitation to come see him privately at the theater. When she arrived, scared to death, he sat her down, made her feel like the most important kid in the world, and told her to never be ashamed, to always be proud of her heritage and of herself. She left glowing.

It was a gesture worthy of any of Lancaster’s screen heroes.

AL RAMRUS

Pacific Palisades

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Readers might be interested in viewing the painting of Burt Lancaster by Thomas Hart Benton titled “The Kentuckian.” Lancaster is shown as Big Eli Wakefield, the Kentuckian, along with Eli’s son and his dog, from the 1955 movie of the same name, which he directed and produced.

The painting is currently displayed in the hallway adjacent to gallery 104 on the first floor of the Ahmanson Building of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

T.W. STAPLE

Newport Beach