Kirk Douglas – PATRICK GELY / SIPA
103 years. You have to write it again to believe it. Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103 this Wednesday, and will go down in cinema history as a sacred Hollywood monster (but not the last one, he remains
Olivia de Havilland), with a hundred films and
iconic roles as The champion, Vincent Van Gogh and of course Spartacus.
As tributes are mushrooming around the world and special programming is not long on television, immerse yourself in a century of life and career with five things you (perhaps) didn’t know about Kirk Douglas. It’s not even his real name.
His name was not really Kirk Douglas
Born December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York, Kirk Douglas is the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Russia, and his real name is Issur Danielovitch. But the paternal uncle who preceded them in the United States uses the name Demsky. The whole family adopted him, in addition to adapting their respective first names: his parents Herschel and Bryna became Harry and Betha, and little Issy took the nickname Izzy. Izzy Demsky so. It was when he landed in New York for an acting career that he took Kirk Douglas as his stage name, before adopting it officially and legally just before enlisting in the navy in 1941.
DEATH OF A LEGEND – Kirk Douglas, the last giant of Hollywood, died during the night. Unforgettable Spartacus, the actor has also toured with the greatest American directors. In 1967, he expressed his love for westerns. And in perfect French! #KirkDouglasRIP pic.twitter.com/NTQHR3N5un
– Ina.fr (@Inafr_officiel) February 6, 2020
He spoke impeccable French
The day after her death, television brought out from her archives the numerous interventions and interviews that the star was able to give in France, and in fact in French. Nearly perfect French. The actor never hid his love for France, he shot the classic there Is Paris Burning?, received an honorary Caesar and the Legion, and above all met his second wife, Belgian producer Anne Buydens, while filming a film (Story of three loves, An act of love or The passionate life of Vincent Van Gogh according to sources) and that she was a publicist. This surely explains this.
Kirk Douglas, December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020.
A life, a voice, a legend pic.twitter.com/xEd6YhenvU– Loopsider (@Loopsidernews) February 6, 2020
He almost got lost in a role
If Kirk Douglas has always regretted not being able to adapt and interpret Flight over a cuckoo’s nest in the cinema, after having played it on stage, there is a role which almost made him lose his head, and his ear, he who always managed to keep distance from his characters, to remain the man he is at the bottom. “I am not Spartacus, I am not a Viking, I am myself, if I start to forget, I need to write it in a book”, he explained on the setApostrophe for the release of his memories, The son of the ragpicker. There remains one exception: Vincent Van Gogh. Kirk Douglas did not leave the character between takes, and will describe the experience as frightening, close to madness, going so far as to touch his ear to verify that it was still there.
He never won an Oscar
While his portrayal of Van Gogh won him the Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1957, he missed the Oscar despite a nomination and Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Anthony Quinn in Paul Gauguin. It was his third and last nomination to the highest honors, after The champion in 1950 and The bewitched in 1953. And that’s it. Kirk Douglas will have to wait until 1996 to be honored by the Academy with an honorary Oscar for “for 50 years of creative and moral force in the cinematographic community”.
He owed his first film role to Lauren Bacall
While attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, Kirk Douglas befriended a younger student, Betty Joan Perske. She has a soft spot for him, but he prefers her classmate and future first wife, Diana Dill. The fact remains that Kirk and Betty remain friends, and after the war, she intervenes with producer Hall B. Wallis and gets him a small role in The grip of crime in 1946. It was his first appearance in the cinema. What does this have to do with Lauren Bacall? Like Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall is a stage name, from a certain Betty Joan Perske.
