Every Disney Hero Has a Voice
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Kirk Douglas
December 9th, 1916
Kirk
Douglas (born Issur
Danielovitch, Russian: И́сер
Даниело́вич; December 9,
1916) is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His
popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace
in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of
Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Vikings
(1958), Spartacus (1960), Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Seven
Days in May (1964), The Heroes of Telemark (1965) and Tough Guys
(1986).
He is
No.17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American
screen legends of all time, making him the highest-ranked living person on the
list. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a
creative and moral force in the motion picture community."
He is
one of the last surviving actors from Hollywood's "golden age".
Early
life
Douglas
was born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Bryna
"Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a
businessman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel, Belarus. His
father's brother, who emigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which
Douglas's family adopted in the United States. In addition to their surname,
his parents also changed their given names to Harry and Bertha. Douglas grew up
as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the
Navy during World War II.
Coming
from a poor family, as a boy Douglas sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough
to buy milk and bread. Later, he delivered newspapers and worked at more than
forty jobs before becoming an actor. He found living in a family of six sisters
to be stifling, stating, "I was dying to get out. In a sense, it lit a
fire under me." During high school, he acted in school plays, and
discovered "The one thing in my life that I always knew, that was always
constant, was that I wanted to be an actor."
Unable
to afford tuition, Douglas talked his way into St. Lawrence University and
received a loan which he paid back by working part-time as a gardener and a
janitor. He was a standout on the wrestling team, and wrestled one summer in a
carnival to make money.
Douglas'
acting talents were noticed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New
York City and he received a special scholarship. One of his classmates was
Betty Joan Perske (later to become better known as Lauren Bacall), who would
play an important role in launching his film career. Another classmate was
aspiring Bermudian actress Diana Dill. While doing summer stock theater during
a college term break, he began using the name Kirk Douglas, which he later
legally adopted. He earned his first money as an actor that summer. Upon
graduating from drama school, Douglas made his Broadway debut as a singing
telegraph boy in Spring Again.
Douglas
enlisted in the United States Navy in 1941, shortly after the United States
entered World War II. He was medically discharged for war injuries in 1944. On
May 3, 1943, Diana Dill, his former classmate, appeared on the cover of Life
magazine. Seeing the photograph, Douglas told his fellow sailors that he was
going to marry her. He did on November 2, 1943. The couple had two sons
together (Michael in 1944 and Joel in 1947) before they divorced in 1951.
After
the war, Douglas returned to New York City and found work in radio, theatre,
and commercials. His stage break occurred in Kiss and Tell, which led to
other roles. Douglas had planned to remain a stage actor but Lauren Bacall
helped him get his first screen role in the Hal B. Wallis film The Strange
Love of Martha Ivers (1946), starring Barbara Stanwyck. Wallis was on his
way to New York to look for new talent when Bacall suggested he visit Douglas,
who was rehearsing a play called The Wind Is Ninety. Douglas finished
the play's run and, with no follow-up work in sight, headed to Hollywood. He
was immediately cast in one of the leading roles in Wallis' film and made his
film acting debut as a weak man dominated by a ruthless woman, unlike his later
roles where he often played dominating characters.
Career
Douglas
established his image as a tough guy in his eighth film, Champion,
playing a selfish boxer. From then on, he made a career of playing "sons
of bitches". From that film on, he decided that to succeed as a star, he
needed to ramp up his intensity, overcome his natural shyness, and choose
stronger roles. He later stated, "I don’t think I'd be much of an actor
without vanity. And I'm not interested in being a 'modest actor'." Early
in his Hollywood career, he demonstrated his independent streak and broke his
studio contracts to gain total control over his projects, forming his own movie
company, Bryna Productions, named after his mother.
Douglas
made his Broadway debut in 1949 in the Anton Chekhov play Three Sisters,
produced by Katharine Cornell.
Douglas
was a major box office star in the 1950s and 1960s, playing opposite some of
the leading actresses of that era. Among his various roles, he played a
frontier peace officer in his first western Along the Great Divide
(1951). He quickly became comfortable with riding horses and playing
gunslingers, and appeared in many westerns. In Lonely Are the Brave
(1962), his own favorite of his performances, Douglas plays a cowboy trying to
live by his own code, much as he did in real life.
In The
Bad and the Beautiful (1952), one of his three Oscar-nominated roles,
Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, a hard-nosed film producer who manipulates and
uses his actors, writers, and directors. In Young Man with a Horn
(1950), Douglas portrays the rise and fall of a driven jazz musician, based on
real-life horn player Bix Beiderbecke. Composer-pianist Hoagy Carmichael,
playing the sidekick role, added realism to the film and gave Douglas insight
into the role, being a friend of the real Beiderbecke.
In one
of his earliest television appearances, Douglas was a musical guest (as
himself) on The Jack Benny Program (1954). In the opening monologue,
Benny reads the reviews of critics who liked his season premiere, while
skipping the ones who did not. He then hurries home for his weekly jam session
with Tony Martin (on clarinet), Fred MacMurray (saxophone), Dick Powell
(trumpet), Dan Dailey (drums), and Douglas (four-string banjo). They avail
themselves of the coin-operated vending machines in Benny's living room. The
band plays Basin Street (Blues), but Douglas keeps going into Bye Bye
Blues, the only song he knows.
Douglas
played many military men, with varying nuance, in Top Secret Affair
(1957), Paths of Glory (1957) (his most famous role in that genre), Town
Without Pity (1961), The Hook (1963), Seven Days in May
(1964), Heroes of Telemark (1965), In Harm's Way (1965), Cast
a Giant Shadow (1966), Is Paris Burning (1966), and The Final
Countdown (1980).
His role
as Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), filmed mostly on location
in France, was noted not only for the veracity of his appearance but also for
how he conveyed the painter’s internal turmoil. He won a Golden Globe award for
his role. Director Vincente Minnelli stated, "Kirk Douglas achieved a
moving and memorable portrait of the artist—a man of massive creative power,
triggered by severe emotional stress, the fear and horror of madness. In my
opinion, Kirk should have won the Academy Award." Douglas himself called
his acting role as Van Gogh a "very painful experience." He writes,
"Not only did I look like Van Gogh, I was the same age he was when he
committed suicide."
Douglas
played the lead with an all-star cast in Spartacus (1960). He was the
executive producer as well, raising the $12 million production cost. He also
played an important role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist by making sure
that Dalton Trumbo's name was mentioned in the opening and ending credits of
the film for the outstanding screenplay he did for the film. Douglas initially
selected Anthony Mann to direct the movie, but dismissed him when he judged the
initial shooting to be unsatisfactory. To replace Mann he chose Stanley Kubrick,
who three years earlier had collaborated closely with Douglas in Paths of
Glory, where Douglas played one of his most notable roles as Colonel Dax,
the commander of a French regiment during World War I. Spartacus was a
huge success, but Kubrick, considering himself a mere employee of Douglas and
since much of the footage (including Peter Ustinov's key scenes) was shot under
Mann, did not consider it to be part of his own oeuvre.
In
addition to serious, driven characters, Douglas was adept at roles requiring a
comic touch, as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), an adaptation of
the Jules Verne novel, wherein he plays a happy-go-lucky sailor who is the
opposite in every way of the brooding Captain Nemo (James Mason). The film was
one of Walt Disney's most successful live-action movies and a major box-office
hit. He manages a similar comic turn in the western Man Without a Star
(1955) and in For Love or Money (1963).
Douglas
made seven films over the decades with Burt Lancaster; I Walk Alone
(1948), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Devil's Disciple
(1959), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Seven Days in May
(1964), Victory at Entebbe (1976) and Tough Guys (1986), which
fixed the notion of the pair as something of a team in the public imagination.
Douglas was always second-billed under Lancaster in these movies but, with the
exception of I Walk Alone, in which Douglas played a villain, and The
List of Adrian Messenger, in which Lancaster played a brief part in
disguise, their roles were more or less the same size. Both actors arrived in
Hollywood at the same time, and first appeared together in the fourth film for
each. They both became actor-producers who sought out independent Hollywood
careers.
Douglas
stated that the keys to acting success are determination and application,
"You must know how to function and how to maintain yourself, and you must
have a love of what you do. But an actor also needs great good luck. I have had
that luck." Douglas had great vitality, "It takes a lot out of you to
work in this business. Many people fall by the wayside because they don’t have
the energy to sustain their talent."[
His intensity spilled over into all
elements of his film-making. As an actor, he dove into every role, dissecting
not only his own lines but all the parts in the script to measure the rightness
of the role, and he was willing to fight with the director if he felt
justified. According to his wife, he often brought home that intensity,
"When he was doing Lust for Life, he came home in that red beard of
Van Gogh’s, wearing those big boots, stomping around the house—it was
frightening." His distinctive acting style and delivery made him, like James
Stewart, a favorite with impersonators, especially Frank Gorshin.
Unlike
some actors such as Robert Mitchum, Douglas had a high opinion of actors,
movies, and moviemaking, "To me it is the most important art form—it is
an art, and it includes all the elements of the modern age." But he also
stressed the entertainment value of films, "You can make a statement, you
can say something, but it must be entertaining."
His
first film as a director was Scalawag (1973). In his autobiography The
Ragman's Son, he said "Since I was accused so often of trying to
direct the films I was in, I thought I ought to really try my hand at
directing." It was a difficult debut with many production problems,
requiring his wife to act as producer. Douglas plays a charming scoundrel with
one leg, a considerable challenge to his athleticism, and though he got credit
for his role, the film received unimpressive reviews. Later in 1973, Douglas
appeared in a made-for-TV musical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
On July
5, 1986, he co-hosted (with Angela Lansbury) the New York Philharmonic's
tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised
live on ABC Television. The orchestra was conducted by Zubin Mehta.
Douglas
was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in Champion,
The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life. He was especially
disappointed for not winning for the last film, "I really thought I had a
chance." Douglas did not win any
competitive Oscars, but received a Honorary Academy Award in 1996 for "50
years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community".
For his
contributions to the motion picture industry, Douglas has a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Blvd. He is one of the few personalities (along
with James Stewart, Gregory Peck, and Gene Autry) whose star has been stolen
and later replaced. In 1984, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall
of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, USA, and he received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1991.
In
October 2004, the avenue Kirk Douglas Way in Palm Springs, California was named
in his honor by the Palm Springs International Film Society and Film Festival.
Popular at home and around the world, Douglas received the Presidential Medal
of Freedom in 1981, the French Legion of Honor in 1985, and the National Medal
of the Arts in 2001.
In March
2009, Douglas starred in an autobiographical one man show titled Before I
Forget at the Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City,
California. The four performances were filmed and turned into a documentary
that was first screened in January 2010.
On
February 27, 2011, Douglas appeared on the stage of the Kodak Theatre for the 83rd
Academy Awards to present the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
Personal
life
Douglas
married twice, first to Diana Dill, on November 2, 1943. The couple had two
sons, actor Michael Douglas and producer Joel Douglas. They divorced in 1951.
He then married German American producer Anne Buydens on May 29, 1954. They had
two sons, producer Peter Douglas and actor Eric Douglas. Eric Douglas died July
6, 2004 of a drug overdose.
In February 1991, Douglas
survived a helicopter crash in which two people died. This sparked a search for
meaning, which led him, after much study, to embrace the Judaism in which he
was raised. He documented this spiritual journey in his book Climbing the
Mountain: My Search for Meaning (2001). In his earlier autobiography, The
Ragman's Son (1988), he stated that "years back, I tried to forget
that I was a Jew." However, in his later career, he notes that "coming
to grips with what it means to be a Jew has been a theme in my life." In
an interview in 2000, he explained this transition:
"Judaism
and I parted ways a long time ago, when I was a poor kid growing up in
Amsterdam, N.Y. Back then, I was pretty good in cheder, so the Jews of our
community thought they would do a wonderful thing and collect enough money to
send me to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. Holy Moses! That scared the hell out of
me. I didn't want to be a rabbi. I wanted to be an actor. Believe me, the
members of the Sons of Israel were persistent. I had nightmares – wearing long
payos and a black hat. I had to work very hard to get out of it. But it took me
a long time to learn that you don't have to be a rabbi to be a Jew."
Douglas
notes also that the underlying theme of some of his films, including The
Juggler (1953), Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and Remembrance of
Love (1982), was about "a Jew who doesn't think of himself as one, and
eventually finds his Jewishness." Although his children had a non-Jewish
mother, Douglas states that they were "aware culturally" of his
"deep convictions," and he never tried to influence their own
religious decisions. He notes, however, that Michael answered, "I'm a
Jew," when once asked about what he was.
While
Douglas has chosen to stay out of political affairs, he has on occasion written
letters to politicians who were friends. He notes in his memoir, Let's Face
It (2007), that he felt compelled to write former president Jimmy Carter in
2006 in order to stress that "Israel is the only successful democracy in
the Middle East. . . . [and] has had to endure many wars against overwhelming
odds. If Israel loses one war, they lose Israel."
In
January 1996, he suffered a severe stroke, partially impairing his ability to
speak. On December 8, 2006, Douglas appeared on Entertainment Tonight,
where the entire staff wished him a happy 90th birthday the night before. His
son Michael and daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones were among the many
celebrities who attended his birthday celebration. On the show, he discussed
the books he has written and the death of his son Eric. Douglas celebrated a
second Bar-Mitzvah ceremony in 1999 at the age of eighty-three.
A
portrait of Douglas, titled "The Great and the Beautiful," which
encapsulated his film career, art collection, philanthropy and rehabilitation
from the helicopter crash and the stroke, appeared in Palm Springs Life
magazine in 1999. The article said "For years, this energetic performer
could be seen jogging several miles to get his morning paper, playing tennis
with locals or posing for snapshots and signing autographs for star-struck
out-of-towners. He has been a veritable one-man tourist promotion over the past
four decades, extolling the virtue of the city he loves to virtually anyone
who'll listen".
Douglas
blogged regularly on his Myspace account but no longer does so. At 96, he is
the oldest celebrity blogger.
Family
tree
Diana Dill
|
Kirk Douglas
|
Anne Buydens
|
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Diandra Luker
|
Michael Douglas
|
Catherine
Zeta-Jones
|
Joel Douglas
|
Peter Douglas
|
Lisa Schoeder
|
Eric Douglas
|
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Cameron Douglas
|
Dylan Michael
Douglas
|
Carys Zeta Douglas
|
Kelsey Douglas
|
Tyler Douglas
|
Ryan Douglas
|
Jason Douglas
|
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Filmography
Films
List of acting
performances in film and television
|
|||
Title
|
Year
|
Role
|
Notes
|
The Strange
Love of Martha Ivers
|
1946
|
Walter O'Neil
|
|
Out of the
Past
|
1947
|
Whit Sterling
|
|
Mourning
Becomes Electra
|
1947
|
Peter Niles
|
|
I Walk Alone
|
1948
|
Noll "Dink" Turner
|
|
The Walls of
Jericho
|
1948
|
||
My Dear
Secretary
|
1949
|
Owen Waterbury
|
|
A Letter to
Three Wives
|
1949
|
George Phipps
|
|
Champion
|
1949
|
Michael "Midge" Kelly
|
|
Young Man
with a Horn
|
1950
|
Rick Martin
|
|
The Glass
Menagerie
|
1950
|
Jim O'Connor
|
|
Along the
Great Divide
|
1951
|
Marshal Len Merrick
|
|
Ace in the
Hole
|
1951
|
Chuck Tatum
|
|
Detective
Story
|
1951
|
Detective Jim McLeod
|
|
The Big Trees
|
1952
|
Jim Fallon
|
|
The Big Sky
|
1952
|
Jim Deakins
|
|
The Bad and
the Beautiful
|
1952
|
Jonathan Shields
|
|
The Story of
Three Loves
|
1953
|
Pierre Narval
|
|
The Juggler
|
1953
|
Hans Muller
|
|
Act of Love
|
1953
|
Robert Teller
|
|
The Jack
Benny Program
|
1954
|
Television
|
|
20,000
Leagues Under the Sea
|
1954
|
Ned Land
|
|
The Racers
|
1955
|
Gino Borgesa
|
|
Ulisse
|
1955
|
Odysseus
|
U.S. title: Ulysses
|
Man Without a
Star
|
1955
|
Dempsey Rae
|
|
The Indian
Fighter
|
1955
|
Johnny Hawks
|
|
Lust for Life
|
1956
|
Vincent van Gogh
|
|
Top Secret
Affair
|
1957
|
Maj. Gen. Melville A. Goodwin
|
|
Gunfight at
the O.K. Corral
|
1957
|
Doc Holliday
|
|
Paths of
Glory
|
1957
|
Colonel Dax
|
|
The Vikings
|
1958
|
Einar
|
|
Last Train
from Gun Hill
|
1959
|
Matt Morgan
|
|
The Devil's
Disciple
|
1959
|
Richard "Dick" Dudgeon
|
|
Strangers
When We Meet
|
1960
|
Larry Coe
|
|
Spartacus
|
1960
|
Spartacus
|
|
Town Without
Pity
|
1961
|
Major Garrett
|
|
The Last Sunset
|
1961
|
Brendan "Bren" O'Malley
|
|
Lonely Are
the Brave
|
1962
|
John W. "Jack" Burns
|
|
Two Weeks in
Another Town
|
1962
|
Jack Andrus
|
|
The Hook
|
1963
|
Sgt. P.J. Briscoe
|
|
The List of
Adrian Messenger
|
1963
|
George Brougham / Vicar Atlee / Mr. Pythian / Arthur
Henderson
|
|
For Love or
Money
|
1963
|
Donald Kenneth "Deke" Gentry
|
|
Seven Days in
May
|
1964
|
Colonel Jiggs Casey
|
|
In Harm's Way
|
1965
|
Commander Paul Eddington
|
|
The Heroes of
Telemark
|
1965
|
Dr Rolf Pedersen
|
|
Cast a Giant
Shadow
|
1966
|
Col. Mickey Marcus
|
|
Is Paris
Burning?
|
1966
|
Gen. George Patton
|
|
The Way West
|
1967
|
Sen. William J. Tadlock
|
|
The War Wagon
|
1967
|
Lomax
|
|
Once Upon a
Wheel
|
1968
|
Himself
|
Documentary
|
A Lovely Way
to Die
|
1968
|
Jim Schuyler
|
|
The
Brotherhood
|
1968
|
Frank Ginetta
|
|
The
Arrangement
|
1969
|
Eddie Anderson
|
|
There Was a
Crooked Man...
|
1970
|
Paris Pitman Jr.
|
|
To Catch a
Spy
|
1971
|
Andrej
|
|
The Light at
the Edge of the World
|
1971
|
Will Denton
|
|
A Gunfight
|
1971
|
Will Tenneray
|
|
A Man to
Respect
|
1972
|
||
The Master
Touch
|
1972
|
Steve Wallace
|
|
Scalawag
|
1973
|
Peg
|
Also directed
|
Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde
|
1973
|
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
|
Musical TV movie version
|
Posse
|
1975
|
Marshal Howard Nightingale
|
Also director
|
Once Is Not
Enough
|
1975
|
Mike Wayne
|
|
Holocaust
2000
|
1977
|
Robert Caine
|
aka Rain of Fire and The Chosen
|
The Fury
|
1978
|
Peter Sandza
|
|
The Villain
|
1979
|
Cactus Jack
|
|
Saturn 3
|
1980
|
Adam
|
|
Home Movies
|
1980
|
Dr. Tuttle "The Maestro"
|
|
The Final
Countdown
|
1980
|
Capt. Matthew Yelland
|
|
The Man from
Snowy River
|
1982
|
Harrison / Spur
|
|
Remembrance
of Love
|
1982
|
||
Eddie Macon's
Run
|
1983
|
Marzack
|
|
Draw!
|
1984
|
Harry H. Holland aka "Handsome Harry Holland"
|
|
Amos
|
1985
|
||
Tough Guys
|
1986
|
Archie Long
|
|
Queenie
|
1987
|
David Konig
|
Television
|
Inherit the
Wind
|
1988
|
Matthew Harrison Brady
|
|
Oscar
|
1991
|
Eduardo Provolone
|
|
Veraz
|
1991
|
||
The Secret
|
1992
|
Grandpa Mike Dunmore
|
Television
|
A Century of
Cinema
|
1994
|
Himself
|
Documentary
|
Greedy
|
1994
|
Uncle Joe McTeague
|
|
Diamonds
|
1999
|
Harry Agensky
|
|
It Runs in
the Family
|
2003
|
Mitchell Gromberg
|
|
Illusion
|
2004
|
Donald Baines
|
|
Meurtres à
l'Empire State Building
|
2008
|
U.S. title: Empire State Building Murders
|
|
Before I
Forget
|
2010
|
Documentary
|
|
Cameraman:
The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
|
2010
|
Documentary
|
|
Short
subjects
- Van Gogh: Darkness Into Light (1956)
- Rowan & Martin at the Movies (1968)
Awards
AFI Life Achievement Award- 1991 Accepted AFI Life Achievement
Award
- 1996 Honorary Award for 50 years as a
creative and moral force in the motion picture community
- 1995 nominated for Honorary Awards
- 1956 Lust for Life nominated
for Best Actor
- 1952 Bad & the Beautiful
nominated for Best Actor
- 1949 Champion nominated for
Best Actor
- 1975 Posse nominated for
Competing Film
- 1956 Lust for Life won for
Best Actor
- 1951 Detective Story nominated
for Best Actor
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