When I was ten years old, I attended a costume party which opened with the screening of a movie. The Crimson Pirate. That was the first movie I had ever seen with Burt Lancaster. Burt Lancaster played the part of the swashbuckling Captain Vallo and I was fascinated, by his comic performance, his acrobats and the plot. I went home after the party and told my Grandmother that the best part of the costume party was the screening of the Crimson Pirate which I thoroughly enjoyed. My Grandmother, who was in her youth a humanitarian activist, much like Burt Lancaster, was extremely pleased that I enjoyed such an old movie and told me all about Burt's humanitarian activities which were just as important to him as acting, if not more. From then on, I kept a lookout for his name in the TV Guide and made a point of taping and watching anything that he appeared in. Over the next couple of years, I think I saw close to twenty five Burt Lancaster films and as an adult I think I've actually managed to watch almost all of them. Throughout the years my opinion of Burt Lancaster has never changed. He's a great actor, granted in some films his acting is not as brilliant as his acting is in other films, for example as an adult, I actually did not find The Crimson Pirate to be quite as entertaining as I found it to be when I was ten years old, but I did and still do, enjoy his more mature films, such as From Here to Eternity and the Birdman of Alcatraz. What can I say, he will always remain one of my favorite actors.