Just days before the Academy Awards, Hollywood
lost an actor whose acclaimed body of work was
emblematic of the Golden Age of film.
Kirk Douglas, star of films like Spartacus, War
Wagon and 20,000 Leagues under The Sea, died
on 5 th February’ 2020 at age 103. He remains that
rarest of the rare legends: a classic film star with
immense life-long impact and everlasting appeal.
His Life
Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on December
9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York. His parents were
Russian Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United
States, looking for a better life.
His father Herschel worked as a ragman, an occupation
immortalised in the title of Kirk’s best-selling 1988
autobiography, The Ragman’s Son.
Theirs was a life fraught with struggles. Kirk was the
only boy among six sisters. To help ends meet in his
desperately poor family, Kirk took on a variety of odd
jobs while growing up. He began acting in plays in high
school, where he excelled in both academics and sports.
After graduation, Kirk attended the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts in New York City on a special
scholarship. When World War II broke out, he joined
the US Navy, from which he received an honourable
discharge in 1944.
Actress Lauren Bacall, his classmate at the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts, got him a role in the Barbara
Stanwyck film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946),
thus launching his Hollywood career.
Even after achieving stardom, Kirk faced his share
of adversity. He was seriously injured in a helicopter
accident in California, in 1993. He suffered a severe
stroke in 1996, which impaired his ability to speak and
from which he largely rehabilitated himself. His youngest
son, Eric, died tragically in 2004.
Until his last days, Kirk Douglas maintained a busy
schedule of film, television, and public appearances, in
addition to his many philanthropic activities.
PVR MOVIES FIRST
His Films
A sought-after actor, Douglas worked with many leading
directors, including Billy Wilder for 1951’s Ace in the
Hole. However, it was his work with Vincente Minnelli
that led to two of his greatest
performances: morally bankrupt
movie executive Jonathan
Shields in The Bad and the
Beautiful (1952), and troubled
artist Vincent van Gogh in Lust
for Life (1956). Douglas earned
an Academy Award nomination
for each of those films.
Over the years, he co-starred with fellow Hollywood
A-lister Burt Lancaster in superhit films such as Gunfight
at the O.K. Corral (1957).
Working with director Stanley
Kubrick, he played lead roles in
the World War I drama Paths
of Glory (1957) and Spartacus
(1960). Douglas’s work in
Spartacus as a Roman slave
is considered to be one of his
signature roles.
Kirk appeared in one of his best-loved comic roles as
a sailor in the hit Disney live-action version of Jules
Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s,
Kirk rose to new heights with
movis such as Is Paris
Burning? (1966), The
Arrangement ( 1969), Once Is
Not Enough (1975), and The
Fury (1978).
In the ’80s, Kirk turned to
feature-length television films.
Notable among them was an
adaptation of the stage play
Inherit the Wind, which won the
Emmy Award for Outstanding
Drama or Comedy Special in
1988.
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