Picture this: a knock-down,
dragged-out fight between two "friends" that must be one of the longest fights
between two people in movie making history. And they're in a couple of feet of water. By
the time the fight is over, all the mud at the bottom of this watering hole out West is
plastered all over the opponents. You can just about make out that the two are Burt
Lancaster and Ossie Davis!
Allegedly, when The Scalphunters was made some thirty years
ago, producer partners Levy-Gardner-Laven wanted to change the script so as not to stir up
racial problems in society, but Burt insisted the verbal exchange between the black and
white characters was real and made sense in the story. So it stayed.
Both men did their own stunt work. Burt, of course, was a professional
circus trapeze artist and acrobat before becoming an actor in Hollywood at 33, and was one
of the most rugged men in town. Therefore, he never let anyone else stand in for him even
for the dirty work! Burt wanted his scenes to be believable. He walked off many sets in
his 85 movie career when a director wanted anything done that "wouldn't fly."
His stubbornness matched his ruggedness. His Irish mother, whom he
worshipped, had a tough time with the "hyper" Burt who was always getting in
fights and running in and out of traffic. Even though automobiles were scarce in the
twenties, Burt managed to get hit on eight separate occasions! As rugged as that may be,
Burt was also an intellectual. By the time he was 14 they say he had read every book in the
library on 110th Street in New York City. Starlet Barbara Carrera said, "Burt read
constantly.......................................................................
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