American actor, producer, director, and author who received the 1996 Academy Honorary Award “for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community”. The dimple-chinned Douglas was on-screen from 1946 in more than 90 films; thrillers, westerns and costume epics. He was nominated for the Oscar as Best Actor in Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956). He was known for his explosive acting style, which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity (1961). Douglas was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Honor for his work as U.S. goodwill ambassador, the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute, and the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor from France. A centenarian, he was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry’s Golden Age.
The son of Russian immigrants with poverty in his early childhood, he decided in kindergarten that he wanted to be an actor. He studied drama and made a New York debut in Spring Again.
World War II interrupted his career with service in the U.S. Navy in 1942 to June 1944, after which he returned to the stage. In 1945 he moved to Hollywood to star in The Strange Love of Martha Ives and became established as an intense tough-guy, a character who was usually a victim of his own aggression.
Douglas formed a production company in 1955 and directed four films with considerable skill. He wrote his autobiography in 1988, The Ragman’s Son. His sixth book was Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning, released in October 1997 by Simon & Schuster. The ’90s brought him back to the faith of his fathers, Judaism, and also brought him fierce battles with severe back pain, and the anguish of learning to speak again after his stoke.
On 13 February 1991, he was in a helicopter that collided with a small plane 50 feet (15 m) above the Santa Paula airport northwest of Los Angeles. The pilot and a young student died, and Douglas suffered a compressed spine, which knocked him down three inches (7.6 cm) in height, and he survived back surgery.
He remembered nothing of the crash, but the stroke was vivid in his mind. Three weeks after the back surgery, on 28 January 1996 he was sitting in his room having a manicure when suddenly he had a funny sensation from his temple to his jaw. He tried to explain and found that he could not talk. He was able to walk from the car into the hospital. It took over a year of intense therapy before he was able to say “transcontinental” more clearly than his three-year-old granddaughter. His sense of humor helped him deal with the battle of depression, and his joking camaraderie with his sons was the biggest aid of all.
As a boy of 14, Douglas had an intense affair with a 30-year-old woman and as a young actor, had a big affair with Pier Angeli. He married Diana Dill and had two sons, Michael and Joel. After his divorce, he had an active social life with the ladies before he married Anne and had two more sons, Peter and Eric.
In 2003, Michael and Joel Douglas produced It Runs in the Family, which along with Kirk starred various family members, including Michael, Michael’s son, and his wife from 50 years earlier, Diana Dill, playing his wife.
On 6 July 2004, his 46-year-old son Eric was found dead in his New York apartment. An autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death. Police ruled out foul play.
In March 2009, Douglas did an autobiographical one-man show, 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.
Douglas, aged 101, appeared at the 2018 Golden Globes with his daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones; he received a standing ovation and helped to present the award for “Best Screenplay – Motion Picture”. As of 2008, he was believed to have been the oldest celebrity blogger in the world. Douglas died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on 5 February 2020 at age 103.
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