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| Kirk Douglas. Date unknown |
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| Kirk Douglas |
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| Forecourt Ceremony held on Thursday, November 1, 1962 |
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Born: Issur Danielovitch, December 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York
Age at the time of the ceremony: 45
Died: February 5, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California, age 103
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Kirk Douglas was one of Hollywood's leading stars in the post-war era. An actor with a powerful personna, Douglas specialized in playing tough idealists on both sides of the law and morality. It suited his character to the point where, even if he was playing a villian, you rooted for him somehow.
Born into a large family of six sisters, Kirk's Jewish parents had immigrated from Belarus, when it was part of the Russian Empire. Settling in upstate New York, Kirk's father Herschel became a ragman; the family spoke Yiddish at home. To help with family finance, Kirk sold snacks to local mill workers, delivered newspapers and held a wide array of odd jobs.
Acting in high school gave him the resolve to become an actor. Attending St. Lawrence University required Kirk to work as a gardner and janitor — a deal he brokered with the dean's office. A rather intense wrestler, Kirk made money one summer wrestling at a carnival.
Kirk won a scholarship to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where he met the future Lauren Bacall. They dated and she helped him out, but nothing further. Enlisting in the US Navy after Pearl Harbor, Douglas (he changed his name upon entering the service) was comminications director on a submarine chaser. Injuries from an accidental depth charge gave Douglas a ticket home in 1944. Married in 1943 to Diana Dill, Douglas had son Michael in 1944 and Joel in 1947. They would divorce in 1951.
Finding work in radio and commecials, Douglas eventually took over for Richard Widmark in the play Kiss and Tell in 1945. Lauren Bacall introduced Douglas to producer Hall B. Wallis, who cast him in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (released in September 1946) with Barbara Stanwyck, and Douglas was off to the races.
Douglas played a diffedent bad guy looking for his girlfriend hiring private eye Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (released in December 1947), which has become a key noir film. Douglas became a very popular figure in films, and starred in many westerns as well as urban dramas.
He brought a viceral power to The Champion (released in May 1949), playing an intense young boxer. This film made him a full-fledged star. He was top-billed as a jazz trumpeter over Doris Day in Young Man with a Horn (released in March 1950), and did his first western Along the Great Divide (released in June 1951).
Douglas then starred in one of the most notorious flops of his career, Ace in the Hole (released in July, 1951), where he played a morally bankrupt newspaper reporter who causes a delay in the rescue of a man trapped in a cave to get more mileage out of the story. The bitter film was rejected by audiences of the day, although it has come to be seen in a better light currently.
Now, all the big directors wanted Douglas. William Wyler cast him as the main character in Detective Story (released in October 1951). Vincente Minnelli saw Douglas as a perfect fit for his film about a successful, if morally dubious film producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (released in December 1952), which is one of Douglas' signature roles. Minnelli also saw something else in Kirk Douglas: an uncanny resemblance to painter Vincent Van Gogh.
The underwater fantasy 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea (released in December 1954), placed Douglas in a more friendly mode, singing a number to a seal while playing a squeezebox. A Douglas film finally played the Chinese with The Racers (played in February 1955) with Bella Darvi!
Director Vincente Minnelli finally got the greenlight for his Van Gogh picture.
Their film of Lust for Life (released in September 1956) is one of Douglas's best; he captures the drama of Van Gogh's struggle with great imagination and pathos. It was while filming Lust for Life, that Douglas met and married Anne Buydens, with whom he would have two more sons. They remained married at his death.
After playing Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (released in May 1957), he formed his own production company to make Paths of Glory (released in November 1957) which has since become a classic anti-war film. Although the picture underperformed at the box-office, Douglas enjoyed being producer, and so The Vikings (released in June 1958) became his next project. All this was a warm-up to his most ambitous picture.
Spartacus (released in October 1960) featured Douglas in the role he was born to play: the determined, but ultimately doomed leader of the slave revolt against the Roman Empire. With a brilliant script by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, and impressive direction from Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus became everything Douglas wanted it to be: big, colorful, thought-provoking, and successful at the box-office.
Producer / star Douglas and writer Dalton Trumbo re-teamed for the western Lonely Are the Brave (released in May 1962), then played a quadruple part for director John Huston in The List of Adrian Messenger (released in May 1963). Later that year, Douglas starred as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on Broadway from November 1963 to January 1964. Although the play was only a moderate success, Douglas hoped to make a film of it; years of trying passed before he gave the rights to his son Micahel who would produce the multiple Oscar winner in 1975.
Returning to the cameras, Douglas produced and starred with Burt Lancaster in one of his favorites, Seven Days in May (which played the Chinese in March 1964). Cast a Giant Shadow (which played the Chinese in May 1966), saw Douglas play "Mickey" Marcus, Isreal's American-born General. Douglas played a US Senator leading pioneers to Oregon in The Way West (released in May 1967).
He co-starred with Faye Dunaway in The Arrangement (released in November 1969) bringing it alongside method acting Dunaway and director Elia Kazan. Douglas directed himself in the comic swashbuckler Scalawag (released in October 1973). He also directed himself in the western Posse (released in June 1975).
Douglas entered the fantasy genre in director Brian De Palma's The Fury (released in March 1978), then tried science-fiction with Saturn 3 (released in February 1980), then time-travel in The Final Countdown (released in August 1980).
Traveling to Australia, Douglas played a double role in the western The Man from Snowy River (released in March 1982), and co-starred one last time with Burt Lancaster in Tough Guys (released in October 1986).
Douglas took on the role of Matthew Brady opposite Jason Robards, Jr. as Henry Drummond in a television version of Inherit the Wind, aired over NBC in March 1988, and played a grandfather with dyslexia in The Secret, aired over CBS in April 1992.
Douglas suffered a stroke in 1996, which severely affected his speech. Undaunted, he played a former boxer recovering from a stroke in Diamonds (released February 2000), which co-starred his old chum, Lauren Bacall. In 2003, he co-starred with son Michael and ex-wife Diana Dill in It Runs in the Family (released in April 2003).
He did a one man show, Before I Forget onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (the former Culver Theatre) in Culver City, which was filmed and released in November 2009.
Douglas wrote several books, including his autobiography, The Ragman's Son in 1988, and a semi-autobiography, Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving and Learning in 2007. Douglas published his account of the production of Spartacus entitled I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist, which occassioned the re-dedication of his footprints in the Grauman's Chinese Theatre Forecourt, followed by a screening of Spartacus on Tuesday, June 12, 2012.
Douglas has appeared with Carl Reiner in a new documentary, called If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast (released in May 2017). He was a presenter at the Golden Globe Awards in 2018. Douglas passed away at his home in Beverly Hills in February 2020.
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| Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, California. Kirk Douglas Forecourt block. Executed by John Tartaglia, Thursday, November 1, 1962. 42 x 48 inches. |
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| Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, California. Kirk Douglas Forecourt ceremony, Thursday, July 26, 1962. Douglas puts the finishing touch to his block as National Theatres executive Eugene V. Klein and retired president Elmer C. Rhoden look on. |
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| Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, California. Kirk Douglas Forecourt rededication ceremony, Tuesday, June 12, 2012. Douglas holds the logos for both the film Spartacus and the Chinese Theatres, LLC. Kirk didn't stay to watch the film. |
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