Nick Cravat

Nick Cravat actually Nicholas Cuccia ( born January 11, 1912 in New York City; † January 29, 1994 in Woodland Hills, California ) was an American film actor and acrobat Italian origin.

Life and work

Nick Cravat learned at the age of about 9 years on a summer recreational know the year- younger Burt Lancaster, with whom he remained close friends for life. Both were formed from to professional acrobats and were active from 1932 under the name " Lang & Cravat " as trapeze artists and tightrope walkers in circus shows. 1941 Lancaster had to give up his work as an artist injury.

After Lancaster had risen in the late 1940s to a Hollywood star, he made sure that his childhood friend Cravat was regularly committed as a supporting actor in his films. Since Cravat spoke a strong Brooklyn accent and he had never enjoyed a drama school, he was seen either in very small roles or joined as a silent partner of Lancaster in appearance.

The stage name " Cravat " comes from a character role that he played. He took the name because he thought the Americans could not correctly pronounce his real name ( Cuccia ).

1950 Cravat was seen in the cloak-and -dagger film The Rebel first time as Lancaster's partner and played his silent companion Piccolo. The two former circus partner resulted in the colorful adventure movie without stunt doubles daring acrobatic feats before. Cravat, stocky and dark-haired, made ​​purely optically the exact counterpart to the blond, athletic Lancaster and seemed to have a bear. In one of the many stunt scenes in the film Lancaster gymnastics for example at a high vertical rod that balances Cravat on his head.

After The rebel had become a box office success, the humorous pirate movie The Crimson Pirate was produced using the same formula in 1952, which became a classic of its genre. Lancaster (as Pirate Captain Vallo ) and his silent partner Cravat (as Ojo ) were again seen as a cunning freedom fighter who demonstrate with jumps and somersaults or daring stunt scenes in the rigging of sailing ships their acrobatic skills.

Cravats later performances were less spectacular. Until 1977, he was seen nine times in movies of his childhood friend and took it also parts that were equivalent to a rather minor role (such as in Airport, 1970, where he was seen as a flight passenger).

1963 Cravat entered into one of the most famous episodes of the television series on Amazing Stories: He played a sinister Gremlin who demolished an aircraft wing in 20,000 feet altitude, giving the passenger who witnessed the scene ( William Shatner ), but nobody wants to believe. ( This episode was parodied in an episode of The Simpsons. )

Nick Cravat died from lung cancer in January 1994, nine months before his childhood friend Lancaster.