Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 - April 14, 1995) was an American actor, writer, and folk singer. In the early 1930s he traveled about America as an itinerant singer playing his banjo. In 1940, he began his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as Foggy Dew, Blue Tail Fly, and Big Rock Candy Mountain. In 1942, he was drafted into the Army and joined the cast of Irving Berlin's This Is the Army. In 1950 he was identified in the pamphlet Red Channels and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952, he cooperated with HUAC and agreed to testify. His statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies. But, it also led to a bitter rift with many folk singers. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1958 for his role in "The Big Country". In 1994, he was diagnosed with oral cancer. After several unsuccessful operations, he decided against further surgery. He fell into a coma and died from the disease in 1995, at the age of 85. Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, dated May 10, 1955.