A born fighter, ‘Spartacus’ star helped end Hollywood blacklist
Kirk Douglas, the intense, muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films, helped fatally weaken the blacklist against suspected Communists and reigned for decades as a Hollywood maverick and patriarch, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 103.
“To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to,” his son Michael said in a statement on his Instagram account.
His granite-like strength and underlying vulnerability made the son of illiterate Russian immigrants one of the top stars of the 20th century. He appeared in more than 80 films, in roles ranging from Doc Holliday in “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” to Vincent van Gogh in “Lust for Life.”
He worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, including Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Elia Kazan. His career began at the peak of the studios’ power, more than 70 years ago, and ended in a more diverse, decentralized era that he helped bring about.
Mr. Douglas never received an Academy Award for an individual film, despite being nominated three times — for “Champion,” “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Lust for Life.” But in 1996, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar.
He was a category unto himself, a force for change and symbol of endurance. In his latter years, he was a final link to a so-called “Golden Age,” a man nearly as old as the industry itself.
In his youth, he represented a new kind of performer, more independent and adventurous than Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and other giants of the studio era of the 1930s and 1940s, and more willing to speak his mind.
Reaching stardom after World War II, he was as likely to play cads (the movie producer in “Bad and the Beautiful,” the journalist in “Ace in the Hole”) as he was suited to play heroes, as alert to the business as he was at home before the camera. He started his own production company in 1955, when many actors still depended on the studios, and directed some of his later films.
A born fighter, Mr. Douglas was especially proud of his role in the downfall of Hollywood’s blacklist, which halted and ruined the careers of writers suspected of pro-Communist activity or sympathies. By the end of the ’50s, the use of banned writers was widely known within the industry, but not to the general public.
Mr. Douglas provided a crucial blow when he openly credited the former Communist and Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo for script work on “Spartacus,” the epic about a slave rebellion during ancient Rome that was released in 1960.
The most famous words in a Mr. Douglas movie were spoken about him, but not by him.
In “Spartacus,” Roman officials tell a gathering of slaves their lives will be spared if they identify their leader, Spartacus. As Mr. Douglas rises to give himself up, a growing chorus of slaves jump up and shout, “I’m Spartacus!”
Mr. Douglas stands silently, a tear rolling down his face.
He was born Issur Danielovitch to an impoverished Jewish family in Amsterdam, New York. He later took the name Kirk Douglas because he wanted his last name still to begin with “D” and “Kirk” because he liked the hard, jagged sound of the “K.”
Beginning in 1941, Mr. Douglas won a series of small roles on Broadway, served briefly in the Navy and received a key Hollywood break when an old friend from New York, Lauren Bacall, recommended he play opposite Barbara Stanwyck in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.”
His real breakthrough came as an unscrupulous boxer in 1949’s “Champion,” a low-budget production he was advised to turn down.
“Before ‘Champion’ in 1949, I’d played an intellectual school teacher, a weak school teacher and an alcoholic,” Mr. Douglas said. “After ‘Champion,’ I was a tough guy. I did things like playing van Gogh, but the image lingers.”
He was married to Diana Dill, but they divorced in 1951. Three years later, he married Anne Buydens, whom he met in Paris while he was filming “Act of Love.’’
He would later owe his very life to Anne, with whom he remained for more than 60 years. In 1958, the film producer Michael Todd, then the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, offered the actor a ride on his private jet. Mr. Douglas’ wife insisted that he not go, worrying about a private plane, and he eventually gave in. The plane crashed, killing all on board.
Mr. Douglas had two children with each of his wives and all went into show business, against his advice.
Besides Michael, they are Joel and Peter, both producers, and Eric, an actor with several film credits who died of a drug overdose in 2004.
Later generations came to regard Kirk as Michael’s father. Michael Douglas not only thrived in Hollywood, but beat his dad to the Oscars with a project his father had first desired.
Kirk Douglas tried for years to make a film out of Ken Kesey’s cult novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” In the 1970s, he gave up and let Michael have a try. The younger Douglas produced a classic that starred Jack Nicholson (in the role Kirk Douglas wanted to play) and dominated the Oscars, winning for best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay.
“My father has played up his disappointment with that pretty good,’’ Michael Douglas later told Vanity Fair. “I have to remind him, I shared part of my producing back-end [credit] with him, so he ended up making more money off that movie than he had in any other picture.”
“And I would gladly give back every cent, if I could have played that role,” the elder Douglas said.