Kirk Douglas

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Producer , Director more
Birth name Yssur Danielovitch Demsky
Nationality American
Birth December 9, 1916 (Amsterdam, New York – United States)
Death February 5, 2020
BIOGRAPHY
Father of Michael Douglas (actor), Joel and Eric Douglas (production assistants) and Peter Douglas (still photographer).

Kirk Douglas was born to Jewish Russian parents who immigrated to the United States in 1910. He managed to finance his studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Art by being a fairground wrestler. He started in the theater in 1941, and had his first film role in the film noir The Grip of Crime (1946) by Lewis Milestone . It was thanks to his friend Lauren Bacall that he was able to take a test, which proved successful. Douglas then filmed with her The Woman of Chimeras (1950) by Michael Curtiz , but his first important role was that of a boxer who refuses to be corrupted in The Champion (1949) directed by Mark Robson , which earned him his first nomination for the Oscar for best actor.

This nomination will be followed by two others, both for films by Vincente Minnelli ( The Bewitched in 1952 and The Passionate Life of Vincent Van Gogh , where he plays the title role, in 1955). For the role of the famous painter, he won the Golden Globe for best actor in a dramatic film.

Fairly early in his career, Kirk Douglas met Burt Lancaster , with whom he would co-star in seven feature films. It was the film noir L’Homme aux abois which brought them together for the first time in 1948. Lancaster plays a former convict who wants to find his former accomplice (played by Douglas). Together, the two actors will tackle all genres: the western, with the success Settlement of Scores at OK Corral which sees Kirk interpret a self-destructive Doc Holliday, the adventure comedy like On the Edge of the Sword (1959) or the police comedy ( The Last on the List , John Huston ). After a spy film ( Seven days in May , 1964), they met again in 1976 for a TV film about a plane hostage-taking, Victoire à Entebbe , then revisited Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn at the theater in the play The boys of autumn (1981). Their last collaboration was in 1986 for Coup double , a Disney production which saw Kirk Douglas himself running on the roof of a moving train… at the age of 69!

Just like his comrade Lancaster , Douglas has a physique recognizable among a thousand which sometimes directs him towards the roles of abject characters ( Le Gouffre aux chimères byBilly Wilder , 1951) or marked by life ( First Victory , Otto Preminger , 1965) and not just because of the dimple he has on his chin. Douglas is an athlete and chooses his roles accordingly: he is in turn the trapper caught in a love duel for a beautiful Indian woman in The Clear-Eyed Captive ( Howard Hawks , 1952), the Canadian harpooner Ned Land in 20,000 Leagues Under the seas ( Richard Fleischer , 1954), a mythological hero ( Ulysses by Mario Camerini in 1954), or even a “bad guy” with a gouged out eye ( The Vikings by Fleischer again in 1958). All these roles meet with public support. Building on these theatrical successes, in 1954 he founded his own production house, Bryna productions , which would become Joel Production (the first names of his mother and his son respectively). He thus produced two Stanley Kubrick films in which he starred: the anti-militarist pamphlet Paths of Glory and the epic Spartacus , which won four Oscars. The actor used his authority to oust Anthony Mann from this film in favor of a Kubrick who he imagined was “more conciliatory”. However, the two men would work together again five years later on the film The Heroes of Telemark .

In 1960, he went against the famous Hollywood blacklist by insisting that screenwriter Dalton Trumbo be credited in the credits of Spartacus (he had used a pseudonym since 1947). In the following years, he hired Trumbo again for two of his productions, El Perdido by Robert Aldrich and Seuls sont les indompt by David Miller . In this second film, Douglas plays one of the last cowboys, who refuses to accept that times are changing. In his autobiography, The Ragpicker’s Son , the actor admitted that this character was his favorite role. Also in the 1960s, he participated in the fresco Is Paris Burning? by playing General Patton, and inaugurated the year 1970 by reuniting with Joseph L. Mankiewicz (after Marital Chains , 1949) for The Reptile , a pessimistic western about human nature, and by filming for the first time with Elia Kazan in The Arrangementin which he plays a man who throws away his comfortable life to restore meaning to his existence.

Eclectic, Kirk Douglas maintains a great interest in theater. He was thus the first to play the lead role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , in 1963. He acquired the rights to the play but, unable to produce it at the time, transferred them to his son Michael , who In 1975, he produced the film adaptation by Milos Forman . He also directed Scalawag (1973), a commercial failure, then the solid western The Texas Brigade (1975).

Like many stars of the golden age, his career suffered from the industry revolution that took place in the 1970s, even if he showed his sympathy for the ” new Hollywood ” by playing the leading role in two films by Brian De Palma , Fury (1978) then Home movies (1980). Despite a notable role in Don Taylor’s hit Nimitz , Back to Hell the same year, his career was less flamboyant during the following decade. After numerous TV films and a few feature films that went unnoticed, Kirk Douglas is becoming rarer. A trend which was accentuated during the 1990s by tragic events. He narrowly escaped a helicopter accident in 1991 which killed two people and suffered a stroke three years later. Despite a second attack (heart attack this time) in 2001, the actor struggled to play with his son Michael and his grandson Cameron in Such a Beautiful Family in 2003. He will make one last appearance on screen to play in his last film, Diamonds (2004), alongside his faithful friend Lauren Bacall , who had launched his career. Died on February 5, 2020 at the age of 103, his contribution to cinema was crowned internationally with an honorary César in 1980, an honorary Oscar for his entire career in 1996, and a Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001. Author: Corentin Palanchini