Nick Cravat

Biography

Nick Cravat real name Nicholas Cuccia (pronounced coo cha) (January 11, 1912, New York City – January 29, 1994, California) was an American film actor. "Cravat" is actually a stage name that he selected based on a character in a play he had seen and rather liked. Life-long friend and trapeze partner of Burt Lancaster, they performed as "Lang and Cravat". He co-starred with Lancaster in nine films all together, of which The Crimson Pirate and The Flame and the Arrow are the best-known. The acrobatic Cravat is also remembered as playing the "gremlin" on the wing of an airplane in the 1963 Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". He played a mute character in several movies, notably The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, mostly because his thick Brooklyn accent, which he could not shake, would have been out of place in the film's storyline. Nick Cravat and Burt Lancaster were childhood friends and met as youngsters (approximately at age 9) at a summer camp in New York. Their friendship continued through the years. They later created an acrobatic act and joined the Kay Brothers circus in Florida. Cravat & Lancaster both died in 1994. His grave is located at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.