Kirk Douglas 1916 - 2020

Kirk Douglas, one of the last living relics from the Golden Age of Hollywood, has passed away at 103 years old. 

Born Issur Danielovitch Demsky in the industrial town of Amsterdam, he was one of seven children to his Jewish parents who had immigrated from Russia. After going to work to support his family as soon as he was old enough, he put himself through St. Lawrence University by working as a janitor. After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree, he moved to Manhattan where he would earn a scholarship at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after one single reading. 

After graduating from the Academy, he made his Broadway debut in Spring Again in 1941. A year later he enlisted in the Navy and served on anti-submarine patrol in the Pacific until 1944. Returning home from the war, he went back to Broadway and enjoyed success. In 1946, Lauren Bacall recommended him for a screen test, and he made his cinema debut that year with THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. 

It would be the start of a career that would span 80 films over the next 46 years. Playing strong-minded characters, he would appear in Billy Wilder’s THE BIG CARNIVAL (1951), DETECTIVE STORY (1951), GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957), PATHS OF GLORY (1957), and THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER (1963). He would work with some the era’s best directors, including Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A LETTER TO THREE WIVES (1949), and John Huston’s THE LAST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER (1963). He would be nominated three times for Best Actor by the Academy, for CHAMPION (1949), THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952), and LUST FOR LIFE (1956). He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1996. He won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the tormented genius Vincent Van Gogh in LUST FOR LIFE. 

A maverick his entire career and life, he rebelled against the McCarthy era by producing and starring in SPARTACUS (1960), which was written by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo. The move made Douglas a hero to others who were blacklisted in Hollywood at the time, and SPARTACUS became Universal’s biggest moneymaker. 

He earned several lifetime achievement awards and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is no. 17 on the American Film Institute’s list of Greatest Male Screen Legends. He is the father to actor two-time Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas. 

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Kirk Douglas was not a direct influence on This Blogger during his formative years, as he had already been around too long. He was the guy that dad watched, and that grandpa always had to see in his beloved cowboy movies. Kirk Douglas was easy to watch, as he was a tough guy but maintained his handsome, chiseled looks…and he always gave the sense that there was a thinking man under the bare-chested, gun-slinging characters he played. He would set a standard that can still be seen today; one of his many legacies. Of all his greatest achievements, his stand against a government that was doing wrong against its own citizens is the one that history will remember; the achievement of standing for those who couldn’t stand for themselves. That was Kirk Douglas.