Kirk douglas

Kirk Issur Douglas Danielovich (known as Kirk Douglas; Amsterdam, New York, December 9, 1916-Beverly Hills, California, February 5, 2020) He was an American actor and film producer. Among his roles, his portrayal of the painter Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956) and his leading role in Spartacus (1960) stood out. For his extensive and renowned career, he received an honorary Oscar in 1996. He was the father of actor Michael Douglas.

He was the penultimate longest-serving performer of classic Hollywood cinema, after actress Olivia de Havilland (who died five months after him), both exceeding 103 years of age.

Biography

Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York, to Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch. His parents were Jewish peasants from Chavusy in the Maguilov region of the Russian Empire (now Belarus). His father made a living selling food and wood on the streets of Amsterdam, New York. But that was not enough to support six daughters and one son, so Kirk Douglas had to start working at a very young age, as he was still I was going to school. Back then, he sold soft drinks and candy on the street and also delivered newspapers for a while His father left the family home when Kirk was five years old.

Kirk Douglas was introduced to the world of acting in elementary school and at Wilbur Lynch High School, where he won a medal for reciting the poem Across the Border. At that same time, he began public speaking and debate, joining the high school team.

At seventeen, she finished high school and wanted to enroll in college. But the salary of his dependent (at that time he worked in a store) was not enough for him to enter. Still, Douglas decided to apply to St. Lawrence University in New York directly to the dean, who accepted him into the university in exchange for Douglas working there as a gardener (later a janitor) while studying there. Douglas was at St. Lawrence from 1935 to 1939, where he graduated in letters with a degree of "Bachelor of Arts" (equivalent to the current degree in Philosophy and Letters).

University graduation photo of Kirk Douglas in 1939

During those four years of university, Douglas also excelled in other activities, especially wrestling, becoming undefeated champion of St. Lawrence and winner of the University Wrestling Championship. He also dedicated himself to debate and theater, joining the university theater group, The Mummers. During one summer he participated in a theatrical number of a fair, acting as a fighter, as Kirk Douglas himself described: "We had a number where I he was a boy from the audience who came out on stage to face the champion. For interpretive purposes it was a great learning experience."

After graduating from St. Lawrence University, he was awarded a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where he remained until 1939, at the age of twenty-three. While there, Douglas taught drama classes to the children at the center and, during the summers, worked in summer theaters as a repertory actor. It was his beginnings in acting as a professional, and it was during this time that Kirk Douglas adopted her stage name. It was also there, at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, that Douglas met Lauren Bacall.

Douglas then focused his objective on the Broadway stage, where he made his debut in 1941 in a play called Spring Again, starring Sir Charles Aubrey Smith, and in 1942 he participated as a stage manager in the play The Three Sisters of Katharine Cornell. That same year he was called up for military service, and joined the United States Army, joining the midshipman school at Notre Dame University, where he graduated as ensign. Immediately afterwards he was assigned to the Anti-submarine Unit 1139, in the Pacific Ocean, where he spent 2 years (1942-1943) as a telecommunications officer.

When he was discharged with honors, he returned to New York and at a friend's house^{[citation needed]} leafed through a magazine (Life), where a beautiful model and actress named Diana Dill appeared, with whom he had also met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and whom he would marry on November 2, 1943. The couple had two children: Michael and Joel.

Road to Stardom

Kirk Douglas at the age of thirty-six and Eve Miller in The law of force (The Big Trees), 1952.

After his return to New York, Douglas took part in a play called Kiss and Tell, along with Joan Claufield, where he replaced Richard Widmark. Later, he worked in Trio, by Dorothy Baker, and also worked on radio as a performer. But Douglas's film debut came about with the help of Lauren Bacall, who recommended Douglas to Hal B. Wallis, a producer and talent scout for the Paramount. The result of this was an audition, along with, among others, Montgomery Clift and Richard Widmark (for all three it would be their first film appearance), for the film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, proof of which Douglas emerged victorious, obtaining the role of Walter, husband of the protagonist.

In 1947, Wallis signed over the rights to Douglas to the production company RKO for two feature films; Return to the past and Mourning suits Electra well. Kirk Douglas later went on to work for 20th Century Fox, where he would debut in 1948 with Walls human beings, and would work for directors like Joseph L. Mankiewicz, in Letter to Three Wives.

In 1949 his career took a turn when he played a boxer in the film The Clay Idol, by Mark Robson, where he was nominated for an Oscar for best actor for his realistic performance. Douglas had turned down a role in The Greatest Sinner, with Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck (and a $50,000 salary), in favor of Stanley Kramer and Robson's production. which won an Oscar for best editing, was the one that served Douglas to show, for the first time, his character when acting.

Kirk became known for his temperamental character and left-wing ideas, which earned him enmity within the high leadership of Hollywood and slowed down his career and justified recognition.^{[citation needed]} But his character not only earned him enemies; film director Vincente Minnelli said that "working with Kirk Douglas on the three films we made together was, for as long as I can remember, the most rewarding and exhilarating collaboration of my life." The director himself came to define Kirk Douglas on his professional facet: «Kirk Douglas is characterized by tireless vigor and energy, by his willingness to try everything and by the absolute disinterest that his physical appearance deserves. He doesn't care about being the handsome hero. His enthusiasm and dedication to the project are contagious ».

In 1951, Diana Douglas filed for divorce from Kirk Douglas, due to the infidelities of the actor, who had well-known affairs with Pier Angeli, Ann Sothern, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Joan Crawford, Patricia Neal, Mia Farrow and Faye Dunaway, as Douglas himself writes in his autobiography. In addition, Douglas had post-divorce affairs with, among others, Terry Moore and Debbie Reynolds. On May 29, 1954, Douglas married Anne Mars for the second time. Buydens, a press agent whom he met while filming Act of Love, and with whom he had two sons, Peter and Eric.

Established Actor

Kirk Douglas at seventy-one, with his wife Anne Buydens and President Ronald Reagan.

In 1954, Douglas was cast in the Walt Disney blockbuster 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for which he earned $175,000. This was his biggest success since The Clay Idol. In subsequent years, he was involved in productions such as King Vidor's The Lawless Prairie and Reckless Men, by Henry Hathaway. In 1955, Douglas founded his own film production company, Bryna, named after his mother, and made his first film as a producer: Pact of Honor , directed by André De Toth.

The Fool with the Red Hair (1956) brought Douglas critical acclaim, winning the Best Actor of the Year award from the New York Critics Circle. Catherine de la Roche said of Douglas that "his formidable temperament, combined here with a gravity not perceptible in other works, allows him to create a characterization full of authority, truth and moments of genuine tragedy". Later, in 1957, he participated in Clash of the Titans , by John Sturges, sharing the lead with Burt Lancaster and Hal Wallis, giving life to Doc Holliday.

Stanley Kubrick then noticed Douglas for Paths of Glory, and offered him $350,000, which was a third of the project's total budget. Douglas, who played a French army colonel in charge of defending three of his men at the military trial, was crucial to the making of the film, as Stanley Kubrick found no studio willing to finance the film until Kirk Douglas (along with her producer, Bryna) accepted her role in it.

In 1958, Bryna produced, and Douglas starred in, The Vikings, and in 1959, Hal B. Wallis turned to Douglas again for another John Sturges western, The Vikings. last train of Gun Hill, given the previous success of Clash of the Titans, by the same director. Douglas returned to production with Spartacus, a film in which he also starred and whose initial budget reached 12 million dollars, obtaining four Oscars from the Academy, although the filming suffered several problems and took more than a year.

Douglas hired Dalton Trumbo for the adaptation of Howard Fast's book Spartacus, and managed (with the help of Charles Laughton and Lawrence Olivier) to have his name appear in the credits, despite the veto to which the screenwriter was subjected (Dalton Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten). Subsequently, Kirk Douglas went to the production company United Artists, whose response was negative, since the production company had a project to produce The Gladiators, of similar history. Eventually, Douglas found support at Universal Pictures for the film's production.

The 1960s continued for Douglas with A Stranger in My Life (1960), and The Last Sunset (1961), and with the production of his own films, which did not work very well: City Without Pity, The Brave Walk Alone (1962), Two Weeks in Another City, Silence of Death (1963), Three Heiresses (1963), The Last of the List (1963) and Seven Days of May (1964). In 1963, Douglas returned to Broadway to star in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,, and even tried to make a film adaptation, but failed. support, so he gave the rights to the novel to his son Michael, whose later film version with Jack Nicholson was a success.

Kirk Douglas's return to the big screen shared military themes: First Victory and The Heroes of Telemark in 1965, and The Shadow of a Giant and Is Paris Burning? in 1966. Later, the interpreter participated in two not very successful westerns: Camino de Oregon (1967), with Richard Widmark and Robert Mitchum, and Attack on the Armored Car, (1967), with John Wayne. It was in 1969 when Kirk Douglas again achieved critical acclaim, with his role in The Engagement (1969).

1970 onwards

Kirk Douglas hosts The Tonight Show 1975

In the 1970s, the actor took part in a wide variety of projects, from a film financed by the jacarrillas (A Gunfight, 1971), to a Yugoslav production in which he participated as much as producer as actor, Peg Leg (1973). He participated in several film projects (The Day of the Cheaters, The Light of the End of the World, Un uomo de Rispettare) and television, among which which highlighted his starring role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, from NBC.

The actor hit rock bottom (in terms of critics and revenue) with the Italian production Holocaust 2000, in 1977, and closed the decade with The Villain, in 1979. In 1980, he starred in Bryna's last production, The end of the countdown. That same year, after leaving the filming of Acorralado, he would return to the theater scene with his friend Burt Lancaster, in the play The Boys in Autumn, which they performed in San Francisco. From 1980, his activity in the cinema decreased, although he occasionally worked for renowned directors, such as John Landis (Oscar, Get Your Hands Off!, 1991) and Fred Schepisi (Things of family, 2003). In 1985, Douglas teamed up with Lancaster again, starring at the Oscars, which inspired the film Another Town, Another Law (1986), which James Orr and James Cruikshank decided to write at the same time. see the acting duo on stage, handing both the starring roles.

The nineties only reserved for Douglas four roles in minor films, which would be Welcome to Truthful (1991), Oscar, Take Your Hands Off! (1991), Greedy (1994) and Diamonds (1999).

Television

Douglas's first television job was in 1973, at the age of fifty-seven, by which time the actor had already passed his golden age on the big screen. He starred in a musical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, broadcast on NBC, shot in England alongside Michael Redgrave, Stanley Holloway and Donald Pleasence. Also shot in England was Douglas's next TV movie, Cat and Mouse (1974), directed by Daniel Petrie, in which Douglas gave life to a failed Canadian teacher named George Anderson.^{[citation needed]}

In 1975 and back in Hollywood, he participated in the NBC miniseries The Moneychangers, based on the novel by Arthur Hailey and directed by Boris Sagal, in which he gave life to a director of bank. The series was, in 1977, a candidate for an Emmy Award. That same year, the actor made a cameo appearance in Victory in Entebbe along with Elizabeth Taylor, where he played a married Jewish Holocaust survivor.

It was not until 1982 to see Kirk Douglas on television again, and it was with the NBC production Memories of Love and Hate, in which Douglas played a surviving New York widower of the Holocaust who is reunited with the woman (Chana Eden) he loved as a teenager, during World War II. In 1984, Douglas switched to HBO and, with its producer Bryna, worked on Draw!, a traditional western directed by Steven H. Stern.^{[citation needed]}

In 1985, he starred in Amos (film), a CBS production written by Richard Kramer and directed by Michael Tuchner, in which Douglas played an octogenarian who, after being in an accident on the who loses his wife, uncovers a network of corruption in a center for the elderly where he is confined. Two years later, she returned to the small screen starring in an adaptation of Michael Korda's novel, Queenie, based on the career of actress Merle Oberon. In 1988, she starred in an NBC television version. from The Inheritance of the Wind, in which he played the prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady, the mythical role of Fredric March in the original film by Stanley Kramer. Douglas's last television appearance was in Tom McLoughlin's The Last Escape, in 1994, in which Douglas played an old peddler.

A unique career

He was nominated three times for an Academy Award, though he never won it due to his political leanings. However, he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1996, for his fifty years of dedication to the film industry.

Many movies he worked on were epic. The most famous and notable was his performance in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus , along with the no less masterful performances of Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier and Jean Simmons.

Douglas, in 2011, at ninety-five years

Another of his famous performances and for which he was nominated for Best Actor for the third time was in The Madman with Red Hair, where he played the painter Vincent Van Gogh, alongside Anthony Quinn, who he did win the statuette, as Best Supporting Actor, for a few minutes of acting.^{[citation required]}

He gave each of his films a distinctive mark, due to the strength of his performances, and a reputation. It was said of him that he did his best in roles that required a strong temper or a powerful presence, and that, in simpler performances, his work was forced. In addition, he co-directed several films and had a unique lawsuit with Stanley Kubrick for the production of some of his films, which undermined his strength in Hollywood and in fact skewed him in all award nominations.^{[citation needed]}

He took part in both comedies and dramas and played tough characters but with a very vulnerable background: The clay idol (M. Robson, 1949), Brigade 21 (W. Wyler, 1951), Captives of evil (V. Minnelli, 1952), Another city, another law (J. Kanew, 1986), Oscar (J. Landis, 1991), Diamonds (1999). He participated in numerous productions for television, and in 1988 he published his autobiography, El hijo del trapero .

In 1996, the Academy awarded him an honorary Oscar, in memory of the fiftieth anniversary of his debut on the big screen. Douglas received the award from Steven Spielberg. Douglas, who could barely speak, said: 'I see my four children. They are proud of the old man. I am also proud. Proud to have been a part of Hollywood for fifty years.”^{[citation needed]}

He was one of the longest-lived actors in Hollywood. On February 13, 1991, he survived a helicopter crash at the Santa Paula (California) airport, colliding with a small plane, an accident in which two people died. In 1994, he suffered a mild thrombosis that caused serious injuries. psychomotor problems (paraplegia). In 1996, he suffered a stroke that deprived him of speech and left him practically paralyzed. Despite this, he was frequently seen together with his son Michael Douglas at some media events.

In 1981, US President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for "working as an emperor of goodwill" and "sharing his love for cinema and his country with other peoples". Douglas, focused on his social work, gave a statement before Congress to report on discriminatory behavior and elder abuse, a subject on which he had written an editorial in the New York Times. That same year he was invited to by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan, to visit Red Cross hospitals and Afghan refugee camps.

In 1983, he won the Jefferson Award for service to the community, and in 1986, while hosting the Statue of Liberty centennial ceremonies, he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for "achieving success while defending the values of his minority". beyond the stars." Douglas also received the D. W. Griffith Career Achievement Award in 1989, and the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991. Kirk Douglas was also made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1985, for his artistic services to France.

Death

On February 5, 2020, he passed away at the age of 103, in Beverly Hills, California. The news was confirmed by his son Michael Douglas through social networks:

It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas has left us today at age 103. For the world it was a legend, an actor of the golden age of the films that lived until well in his old age, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and to the causes in which he believed inspired us all. But for me and my brothers, Joel and Peter, he was simply a father, for Catherine (Zeta-Jones) a fantastic father-in-law, for his grandchildren and granddaughter his beloved grandfather and for his wife Anne, a wonderful husband.

Filmography

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

San Sebastian International Film Festival

San Jorge Awards