Kirk Douglas
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor, producer, director, philanthropist and author best-known for his part in Spartacus (1960) and his cleft chin.
Overview
After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films. Douglas was known for his explosive acting style, which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity (1961).
Douglas became an international star through positive reception for his leading role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day, Ace in the Hole opposite Jan Sterling (1951), and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor in a Drama. He received a second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and his third nomination for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), which landed him a second Golden Globe nomination.
In 1955, he established Bryna Productions, which began producing films as varied as Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). In those two films, he collaborated with the then-relatively-unknown director Stanley Kubrick, taking lead roles in both films. Douglas has been praised for helping to break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit. He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), considered a classic, and Seven Days in May (1964), opposite Burt Lancaster, with whom he made seven films. In 1963, he starred in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a story that he purchased and later gave to his son Michael Douglas, who turned it into an Oscar-winning film.
As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas received three Academy Award nominations, an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs. He is No. 17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema, the highest-ranked living person on the list until his death. After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lived with his second wife (of Template:Age years), Anne Buydens, a producer, until his death on February 5, 2020, at age 103. A centenarian, he was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age.
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1946 | The Strange Love of Martha Ivers | Walter O'Neil | |
1947 | Out of the Past | Whit Sterling | |
Mourning Becomes Electra | Peter Niles | ||
1948 | I Walk Alone | Noll "Dink" Turner | |
The Walls of Jericho | Tucker Wedge | ||
1948 | My Dear Secretary | Owen Waterbury | |
1949 | A Letter to Three Wives | George Phipps | |
Champion | Michael "Midge" Kelly | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actor | |
1950 | Young Man with a Horn | Rick Martin | |
The Glass Menagerie | Jim O'Connor | ||
1951 | Along the Great Divide | Marshal Len Merrick | |
Ace in the Hole | Chuck Tatum | ||
Detective Story | Detective Jim McLeod | ||
1952 | The Big Trees | Jim Fallon | |
The Big Sky | Jim Deakins | ||
The Bad and the Beautiful | Jonathan Shields | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actor | |
1953 | The Story of Three Loves | Pierre Narval | |
The Juggler | Hans Muller | ||
Act of Love | Robert Teller | ||
1954 | The Jack Benny Program | TV series | |
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea | Ned Land | ||
1955 | The Racers | Gino Borgesa | |
Ulysses | Odysseus | aka Ulysses | |
Man Without a Star | Dempsey Rae | ||
The Indian Fighter | Johnny Hawks | ||
1956 | Lust for Life | Vincent van Gogh | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actor |
1957 | Top Secret Affair | Maj. Gen. Melville A. Goodwin | |
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral | Doc Holliday | ||
Paths of Glory | Colonel Dax | ||
1958 | The Vikings | Einar | |
1959 | Last Train from Gun Hill | Matt Morgan | |
The Devil's Disciple | Richard "Dick" Dudgeon | ||
1960 | Strangers When We Meet | Larry Coe | |
Spartacus | Spartacus | Also co-executive producer | |
1961 | Town Without Pity | Major Garrett | |
The Last Sunset | Brendan "Bren" O'Malley | ||
1962 | Lonely Are the Brave | John W. "Jack" Burns | |
Two Weeks in Another Town | Jack Andrus | ||
1963 | The Hook | Sgt. P.J. Briscoe | |
The List of Adrian Messenger | Various | ||
For Love or Money | Donald Kenneth "Deke" Gentry | ||
1964 | Seven Days in May | Colonel Jiggs Casey | |
1965 | In Harm's Way | Commander Paul Eddington | |
The Heroes of Telemark | Dr Rolf Pedersen | ||
1966 | Cast a Giant Shadow | Col. Mickey Marcus | |
Is Paris Burning? | Gen. George Patton | ||
1967 | The Way West | Sen. William J. Tadlock | |
The War Wagon | Lomax | ||
1968 | Once Upon a Wheel | Himself | Documentary |
A Lovely Way to Die | Jim Schuyler | ||
The Brotherhood | Frank Ginetta | Also producer | |
1969 | The Arrangement | Eddie Anderson | |
1970 | There Was a Crooked Man... | Paris Pitman Jr. | |
The Johnny Cash Show | Himself/Singer | TV series (1 episode: #1.18) | |
1971 | To Catch a Spy | Andrej | |
The Light at the Edge of the World | Will Denton | Also producer | |
A Gunfight | Will Tenneray | ||
1972 | The Master Touch | Steve Wallace | |
1973 | Scalawag | Peg | Also director |
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Musical TV movie | |
1974 | Mousey | George Anderson | TV movie |
1975 | Posse | Marshal Howard Nightingale | Also director/producer |
Once Is Not Enough | Mike Wayne | ||
1976 | Victory at Entebbe | Hershel Vilnofsky | TV movie |
1977 | Holocaust 2000 | Robert Caine | aka Rain of Fire and The Chosen |
1978 | The Fury | Peter Sandza | |
1979 | The Villain | Cactus Jack | |
1980 | Saturn 3 | Adam | |
Home Movies | Dr. Tuttle "The Maestro" | ||
The Final Countdown | Capt. Matthew Yelland | ||
1982 | The Man from Snowy River | Harrison/Spur | |
Remembrance of Love | Joe Rabin | ||
1983 | Eddie Macon's Run | Marzack | |
1984 | Draw! | Harry H. Holland | TV movie |
Hollywood Greats | Himself | TV series (1 episode: "John Wayne") | |
1985 | Amos | Amos Lasher | TV movie |
1986 | Tough Guys | Archie Long | |
1987 | Queenie | David Konig | TV movie |
1988 | Inherit the Wind | Matthew Harrison Brady | |
1991 | Oscar | Eduardo Provolone | |
Veraz/Welcome to Veraz | Quentin | ||
Tales from the Crypt | General Kalthrob | TV series (1 episode: "Yellow") | |
1992 | The Secret | Grandpa Mike Dunmore | TV movie |
1994 | A Century of Cinema | Himself | Documentary |
Greedy | Uncle Joe McTeague | ||
Take Me Home Again | Ed Reece | TV movie | |
1996 | The Simpsons | Chester J. Lampwick (voice) | TV series (1 episode: "The Day the Violence Died") |
1997 | Xena: Warrior Princess | Spartacus | TV series; archive footage (1 episode: "Athens Academy of the Performing Bards") |
1999 | Diamonds | Harry Agensky | |
2000 | Touched by an Angel | Ross Burger | TV series (1 episode: "Bar Mitvah") |
2003 | It Runs in the Family | Mitchell Gromberg | |
2004 | Illusion | Donald Baines | |
2008 | Empire State Building Murders | Jim Kovalski | TV movie; aka Meurtres à L'Empire State Building |