Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker.

Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch (Ісур Даніелoвіч, Иссур Даниелович, איסור דאַניעלאָוויטש) in Amsterdam, New York, on December 9, 1916, the son of Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch.

His parents were immigrants from Chavusy, Mogilev Governorate, in the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), and the family spoke Yiddish at home.

Douglas was the fourth of seven children and the only son born to his parents.

His sisters were: Pesha "Bessie", Kaleh "Katherine", Tamara "Mary", Siffra "Frieda", Haska "Ida", and Rachel "Ruth".

Douglas embraced his Jewish heritage in his later years, after a near-fatal helicopter crash at the age of 74.

His father's brother, who had immigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted in the United States.

Douglas grew up as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the United States Navy during World War II.

After appearing in plays at Amsterdam High School, from which he graduated in 1934, he knew he wanted to become a professional actor.

Unable to afford the tuition, Douglas talked his way into the dean's office at St. Lawrence University and showed him a list of his high school honors.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1939.

He received a loan which he paid back by working part-time as a gardener and a janitor.

He was a standout on the school's wrestling team and wrestled one summer in a carnival to make money.

After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck.

His other early films include Out of the Past (1947); Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day; Ace in the Hole (1951); and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.

Douglas played an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

In September 1949, 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 helped to break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit.

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 and was known for his explosive acting style.

He received his second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and earned his third for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), a role for which he won the Golden Globe for the Best Actor in a Drama.

He also starred with James Mason in the adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a large box-office hit.

He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), the latter 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.

Douglas continued acting into the 1980s, appearing in such films as Saturn 3 (1980), The Man from Snowy River (1980), Tough Guys (1986), a reunion with Lancaster, and in the television version of Inherit the Wind (1988) plus in an episode of Touched by an Angel in 2002, for which he received his third nomination for an Emmy Award.

As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas received an Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs.

In his 1988 autobiography, The Ragman's Son, Douglas notes the hardships that he, along with his parents and six sisters, endured during their early years in Amsterdam:

"My father, who had been a horse trader in Russia, got himself a horse and a small wagon, and became a ragman, buying old rags, pieces of metal, and junk for pennies, nickels, and dimes … Even on Eagle Street, in the poorest section of town, where all the families were struggling, the ragman was on the lowest rung on the ladder. And I was the ragman's son."

Douglas had an unhappy childhood, living with an alcoholic, physically abusive father.

While his father drank up what little money they had, Douglas and his mother and sisters endured "crippling poverty".

Douglas first wanted to be an actor after he recited the poem "The Red Robin of Spring" while in kindergarten and received applause.

Growing up, he sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough to buy milk and bread to help his family.

He later delivered newspapers, and he had more than forty jobs during his youth before becoming an actor.

He found living in a family with six sisters to be stifling: "I was dying to get out. In a sense, it lit a fire under me."

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 was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.

He lived with his second wife, producer Anne Buydens, until his death in 2020.

A centenarian, Douglas was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age.