Actor Kirk Douglas (December 9, 1916) died on Wednesday at the age of 103. The Hollywood legend was nominated for an Oscar three times in his long career. He is perhaps best known for his role as Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus in the 1960 classic.
Douglas was born in 1916 in the US state of New York as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, son of Jewish immigrants from Chavusy, nowadays Belarus. He grew up in a poor neighborhood. He was a good athlete and wrestler and was also able to learn well, allowing him to follow a course at St. Lawrence University. Not much later he got the chance to follow a drama course at the America Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Young Douglas, after his training, played in a few small productions on Broadway, but decided to join the navy in 1941, where he fought until the end of World War II. He married actress Diana Love-Dill in 1943 with whom he had two sons: Joel and Michael Douglas. The marriage lasted until 1951. Three years later he married the now 100-year-old producer Anna Douglas, with whom he had two sons and with whom he stayed together until his death.
Oscar nominations after service in the US Navy
After the war he started acting again. On the advice of former classmate Lauren Bacall, he auditioned for the lead role in the film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, for which he was hired. It led to good criticism and more roles. In 1948 he appeared in the crime drama I walk alone, alongside Burt Lancaster with whom he would appear in a total of seven films.
A year later he received his first Oscar nomination for his role in the boxing film Champion. He did not cash in on the nomination, but was nominated for the romantic drama two years later The Bad and the Beautiful from Vincente Minnelli. In 1959 he received his third nomination for his role as Vincent van Gogh in the drama Lust for life, again from Minnelli. He never received the prize, but won an honorary Oscar for his entire oeuvre years later in 1996.
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Kirk Douglas in the title role of the classic Spartacus. (Photo: Bruno Press)
Douglas broke ‘black list of Hollywood’
One of his best-known roles is the title role in the drama Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick, a film he also produced. Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was on the blacklist of Hollywood, where (alleged) communists, or filmmakers with sympathy for communism, were kept. Those on the list could forget a career in Hollywood or were not mentioned in the credits. Douglas insisted that Trumbo be the only screenwriter of the film, effectively putting an end to the controversial list.
In addition to his work in Hollywood, Douglas has also worked for charities. He gave millions away to hospitals and schools and set up the Anne and Kirk Douglas Playground Award with his wife, which decorated hundreds of school yards in Los Angeles.
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