Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
Kirk Douglas
February 5, 2020 (aged 103)
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, California
- Isador Demsky
- Izzy Demsky
- Actor
- filmmaker
- philanthropist
1944–2008
1941–1944
Douglas played an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include Out of the Past (1947); Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day; Ace in the Hole (1951); and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He received his second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and earned his third for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), a role for which he won the Golden Globe for the Best Actor in a Drama. He also starred with James Mason in the adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a large box-office hit.
In September 1949, he established Bryna Productions, which began producing films as varied as Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). In those two films, he collaborated with the then relatively unknown director Stanley Kubrick, taking lead roles in both films. Douglas helped to break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit.[1] He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), the latter opposite Burt Lancaster, with whom he made seven films. In 1963, he starred in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a story that he purchased and later gave to his son Michael Douglas, who turned it into an Oscar-winning film. Douglas continued acting into the 1980s, appearing in such films as Saturn 3 (1980), The Man from Snowy River (1980), Tough Guys (1986), a reunion with Lancaster, and in the television version of Inherit the Wind (1988) plus in an episode of Touched by an Angel in 2002, for which he received his third nomination for an Emmy Award.
As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas received an Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs. After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lived with his second wife, producer Anne Buydens, until his death in 2020. A centenarian, Douglas was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age.[2]
Career[edit]
Rise to stardom[edit]
Douglas joined the United States Navy in 1941, shortly after the United States entered World War II, where he served as a communications officer in anti-submarine warfare aboard USS PC-1139.[29] He was medically discharged in 1944 for injuries sustained from the premature explosion of a depth charge.[30]
After the war, Douglas returned to New York City and found work in radio, theater, and commercials. In his radio work, he acted in network soap operas and saw those experiences as being especially valuable, as skill in using one's voice is important for aspiring actors; he regretted that later the same avenues became no longer available. His stage break occurred when he took over the role played by Richard Widmark in Kiss and Tell (1943), which then led to other offers.[27]
Douglas had planned to remain a stage actor until his friend Lauren Bacall helped him get his first film role by recommending him to producer Hal B. Wallis, who was looking for a new male talent.[31] Wallis's film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck became Douglas' debut screen appearance. He played a young, insecure man stung by jealousy, whose life was dominated by his ruthless wife, and who hid his feelings with alcohol. It would be the last time that Douglas portrayed a weakling in a film role.[32][33] Reviewers of the film noted that Douglas already projected qualities of a "natural film actor", with the similarity of this role with later ones explained by biographer Tony Thomas:
Personal life[edit]
Personality[edit]
In The Ragman's Son, Douglas described himself as a "son of a bitch," adding, "I'm probably the most disliked actor in Hollywood. And I feel pretty good about it. Because that's me... . I was born aggressive, and I guess I'll die aggressive."[7] Co-workers and associates alike noted similar traits, with Burt Lancaster once remarking, "Kirk would be the first to tell you that he is a very difficult man. And I would be the second."[111] Douglas's brash personality is attributed to his difficult upbringing living in poverty and his aggressive alcoholic father who was neglectful of Kirk as a young child.[7][112] According to Douglas, "there was an awful lot of rage churning around inside me, rage that I was afraid to reveal because there was so much more of it, and so much stronger, in my father."[112] Douglas' discipline, wit and sense of humor were also often recognized.[7]
Health problems and death[edit]
On January 28, 1996, at age 79, Douglas suffered a severe stroke, which impaired his ability to speak.[152] Doctors told his wife that unless there was rapid improvement, the loss of the ability to speak was likely permanent. After a regimen of daily speech-language therapy that lasted several months, his ability to speak returned, although it was still limited. He was able to accept an honorary Academy Award two months later in March and thanked the audience.[153][154] He wrote about this experience in his 2002 book My Stroke of Luck, which he hoped would be an "operating manual" for others on how to handle a stroke victim in their own family.[154][155]
Douglas died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, surrounded by his family on February 5, 2020, at the age of 103. His cause of death was kept private.[156][157] Douglas's funeral was held at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, on February 7, 2020, two days after his death. He was buried in the same plot as his son, Eric.[158][159] On April 29, 2021, his wife Anne died at the age of 102 and was buried next to him and their son.[160]
AFI Life Achievement Award
Kennedy Center Honors
Academy Awards
Golden Globes
Emmy Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards
BAFTA Awards
Britannia Awards
Berlin International Film Festival
Cesar Awards
Hollywood Film Festival
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Circle Award
In 1983, Douglas received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[187]
In 1996, Douglas received an Honorary Academy Award for "50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community." The award was presented by producer/director Steven Spielberg.[153] As a result of Douglas's stroke the previous summer, however, in which he lost most of his speaking ability, his close friends and family were concerned about whether he should try to speak, or what he should say. Both his son Michael, and his long-time friend Jack Valenti, urged him to only say "Thank you", and leave the stage. Douglas agreed, but had second thoughts when standing in front of the audience. He later reflected that: "I intended to just say 'thank you,' but I saw 1,000 people, and felt I had to say something more, and I did."[188] Valenti remembers that after Douglas held up the Oscar, addressed his sons, and told his wife how much he loved her, everyone was astonished at his voice's improvement:
Since 2006, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has awarded the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in film to acknowledge lifetime contributions to the film industry. Recipients of the award include Robert De Niro, Ed Harris, Harrison Ford, Michael Douglas, Hugh Jackman and Judi Dench.[189] The award is typically presented to actors, although directors Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese have been presented with it.[190] In 2015, a star was nicknamed after Douglas in the International Star Registry to commemorate his 99th birthday.[191]