A LUST FOR LIFE
Kirk Douglas showed strength of spirit until the end, Jamie Portman writes.
He had eased his shattered body onto a chair, visibly wincing as he sought a comfortable position. His pain, a constant companion, was the legacy of a 1991 helicopter crash that had almost killed him. Kirk Douglas was no longer the strapping hero of Spartacus or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A compressed spine had cost him three inches in height.
It was the spring of 2003, and further ravages were evident in a session with reporters. A 1996 stroke had slurred his speech. Yet, at 86, he was still resilient, still denying the frailty of old age, still conveying a forceful authority and presence, still revealing a wide-ranging and wittily observant mind.
Douglas, who died Wednesday at age 103, proved to be a survivor who would remain a public figure into his 90s. But his last major media encounter was that session in 2003. The occasion was the release of a new movie, It Runs in the Family, starring Kirk, son Michael, grandson Cameron and ex-wife Diana. It had been a cherished project for years — and then illness had intervened.
“I was very excited, and then I had my stroke,” Douglas said. “And I thought — I will never do this movie because what can an actor do who can’t talk? You wait for silent pictures to come back.”
But he did learn to talk again. By the time shooting started on It Runs in the Family, he had already appeared in another movie, Diamonds, which had only a limited release but also offered a lifeline to its stricken star because it proved to him he could still act.
So there are two tributes to pay to this man.
The first is in acknowledgment of a stunning acting career that led to such classic films as Champion, A Letter to Three Wives, Paths of Glory, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Lust for Life and Lonely Are the Brave. The second is for the courage and tenacity he exhibited in the closing decades of his life.
In his final media encounter, Douglas was unsparingly matterof-fact about the physical ordeals of his later years.
He remained haunted by the 1991 helicopter crash, not because it had left him in such intense pain but because he was the only one of who had survived.
“Lying in hospital, I asked myself — why am I alive? I was in my 70s. The kid who was killed was only 18 and getting ready for his senior prom.”
There were times when he contemplated suicide.
“It’s a tragedy for an actor if he can’t talk, and when you have a stroke and start to babble and cannot form words, such a depression sets in. So I really had to get out of this depression.”
So he forced himself to look on the bright side. He reminded himself he was lucky because only his speech had been affected.
He refused to give up. He entered speech therapy and gradually taught himself to speak again. He wrote books.
He was determined to continue living as full a life as possible.
Douglas in 2003 showed an underlying serenity — the serenity of a man who had run another mile against heavy odds. And you became aware of how formidable those odds were at the end of the session as he struggled to rise from his chair, face constricted in pain.
He didn’t make it up, so his grandson, Cameron, moved forward to assist. Douglas succeeded this time, breathing heavily. He was now back in charge. Flashing that trademark dimpled grin, he left the room under his own steam — an indomitable lion in winter.