Robert Stroud, the Real Birdman of Alcatraz: Not the Sympathetic Man Played by Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster is an actor who is up there among the best to ever hit Hollywood. One of Lancaster’s most popular roles was his turn as the title character in The Birdman of Alcatraz. For his portrayal of Robert Stroud, Burt Lancaster earned another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The Birdman of Alcatraz was a huge hit with audiences and Lancaster’s typically complex performance combined with the movie’s overall sympathetic perspective toward Stroud raised serious questions about the American penal system. Unfortunately, the screenwriter and director John Frankenheimer had chosen an unlikely person around which to base a film intended to engender a more critical analysis of that system. The truth is that the real Robert Stroud was nothing like the sensitive man portrayed in the film. Perhaps the true story of Robert Stroud would have been an even more powerful indictment of the penal system.

Stroud initially went to jail after being convicted of manslaughter. While in prison he quickly learned that even the slightest offense could result in a vicious response from guards. He also learned that being in prison was essentially a game of survival. As a result, Stroud grew into a bitter and despondent man as the years passed, cold and withdrawn and given to expressing his conflicting emotions in bouts rage. His anger overcame him one day and an argument with fellow inmate who had ratted on Stroud for stealing food ended with Stroud stabbing the man. For his offense, his sentence was extended by six months. Many convicts who remember Stroud said that the rather meek and bookish character played by Lancaster was utter fiction. Stroud’s reputation was apparently one of confrontation and the ability to get under the skin of nearly everyone by sticking his nose into their business. One of those was an intimidating guard named Andrew Turner. Stroud and Turner had a series of tense altercations that climaxed one day in Stroud stabbing Turner to death. This time was he was charged with murder. When a jury found him guilty he was sentenced to death. Appeals resulted in a second trial at which he was again found guilty but was given a life sentence.

While it is true that Robert Stroud educated himself and was responsible for several breakthroughs in the field of bird-related diseases, he was hardly the sympathetic figure that came to be for thousands who saw the movie. By all accounts of those who knew him, Robert Stroud was a cold-blooded killer and thoroughly offensive human being. His prickly and contentious personality tended to eventually result in violent confrontations. As if that weren’t enough to lessen the legend levied as a result of the movie, there was another aspect of Robert Stroud that was not exactly fit for filming: he was also quite the fan of child pornography.