Remembering Kirk Douglas

Yesterday, the world lost a legend. Actor/producer Kirk Douglas has died at the age of 103. Douglas was one of the old school Hollywood tough guys, appearing in film noir classics like Out of the Past (1947), hard hitting dramas like The Bad and Beautiful (1952), and Westerns like Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957). But Douglas was more than just a movie star.

He also produced important films like “Paths of Glory” (1957) and Spartacus (1960) – both directed by an up-and-comer named Stanley Kubrick. For years, he tried to produce a movie version of Ken Kesey’s landmark novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but by the time his son, actor/producer Michael Douglas, actually got the movie made in the mid-1970s, the elder Douglas had grown too old to believably play the lead role.

Considering his tough guy persona, Douglas’s filmography is surprisingly diverse. In 1954, he appeared in Walt Disney’s big-budget adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – one of my personal favorites of his roles. Douglas uses his manly swagger to bring a playful sense of rebellion to the effects-heavy epic, even performing a delightful song called “A Whale of Tale.” In 1956, he played tormented painter Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent Minelli’s Lust for Life (1956).

A few years earlier, he headlined Billy Wilder’s biting satire of media exploitation Ace in the Hole (1951). In that film, Douglas plays an ambitious, unscrupulous newspaper reporter who creates a media circus around a man trapped in a cave-in. Douglas brings charisma and humanity to a character who is considerably less heroic than other roles he inhabited like Spartacus or the mythic Ulysses.

Off screen, Douglas was also something of a hero. After a stroke in 1995, he had to re-learn how to speak, then continued acting and became an outspoken advocate for stroke victims.

He was also instrumental in breaking the disgraceful Hollywood blacklist in 1960. During the late ‘40s and the ‘50s, many writers, actors, and directors were unable to find work because of their political beliefs. One of those writers was the great Dalton Trumbo (Roman Holiday). Trumbo had been writing under pseudonyms for years, but Douglas defied the studio chiefs and insisted that Trumbo receive on-screen credit for his work on Spartacus. That action led to the end of the blacklist.

Kirk Douglas appeared in more great movies than I have room to list here. He was an icon of the silver screen and an important figure off screen as well. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy and an incredible body of work that will stand the test of time.

Written By:

Joshua Courtade

Joshua Courtade is a Director, Writer, and Film Professor based in Grand Rapids, MI. His work includes the feature films “Alone in the Universe," “Twenty Years Later,” and “Black Paper,” as well as numerous shorts and YouTube series such as “Space Debris” and “Puppet Dimension.”