EARLY DAYS PRODUCTIONS
Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Bryna and Herschel Danielovitch, a businessman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel, Belarus. His father's brother, who emigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted in the United States. In addition to their surname, his parents also changed their given names to Harry and Bertha. Douglas grew up as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas when entering the Navy during World War II.
b.1916
Stats:
Real Name:
Issur Danielovitch
Height "5' 9"
Hair: Light Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Nickname: None Found
Quote: "In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail."
Real Name:
Issur Danielovitch
Height "5' 9"
Hair: Light Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Nickname: None Found
Quote: "In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail."
Coming from a poor family, as a boy Douglas sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough to buy milk and bread. Later, he delivered newspapers and worked at more than forty jobs before becoming an actor. He found living in a family of six sisters to be stifling, stating, "I was dying to get out. In a sense, it lit a fire under me." During high school, he acted in school plays, and discovered "The one thing in my life that I always knew, that was always constant, was that I wanted to be an actor."
Douglas' acting talents were noticed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and he received a special scholarship. One of his classmates was Betty Joan Perske (later to become better known as Lauren Bacall), who would play an important role in launching his film career.While doing summer stock theater during a college term break, he began using the name Kirk Douglas, which he later legally adopted. He earned his first money as an actor that summer. Upon graduating from drama school, Douglas made his Broadway debut as a singing telegraph boy in Spring Again.
Douglas enlisted in the United States Navy in 1941, shortly after the United States entered World War II. He was medically discharged for war injuries in 1944. After the war, Douglas returned to New York City and found work in radio, theatre, and commercials. His stage break occurred in Kiss and Tell, which led to other roles. Douglas had planned to remain a stage actor but Lauren Bacall helped him get his first screen role in the Hal B. Wallis film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), starring Barbara Stanwyck.
Douglas established his image as a tough guy in his eighth film, Champion, playing a selfish boxer. From that film on, he decided that to succeed as a star, he needed to ramp up his intensity, overcome his natural shyness, and choose stronger roles. He later stated, "I don’t think I’d be much of an actor without vanity. And I’m not interested in being a 'modest actor'." Douglas was a major box office star in the 1950s and 1960s, playing opposite some of the leading actresses of that era. He quickly became comfortable with riding horses and playing gunslingers, and appeared in many westerns. In Lonely Are the Brave (1962), his own favorite of his performances, Douglas plays a cowboy trying to live by his own code, much as he did in real life.
Douglas played many military men, with varying nuance, in Top Secret Affair (1957), Paths of Glory (1957) (his most famous role in that genre), Town Without Pity (1961), The Hook (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), Heroes of Telemark (1965), In Harm's Way (1965), Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), Is Paris Burning (1966), and The Final Countdown (1980).
In addition to serious, driven characters, Douglas was adept at roles requiring a comic touch, as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, wherein he plays a happy-go-lucky sailor who is the opposite in every way of the brooding Captain Nemo (James Mason). The film was one of Walt Disney's most successful live-action movies and a major box-office hit. He manages a similar comic turn in the western Man Without a Star (1955) and in For Love or Money (1963).
Douglas suffered a stroke in January 1996 that left his speach partially impared though he has remained active in film, stage, and public appearances. He also actively blogs on his myspace page making him the oldest celebrity blogger at 94.
In addition to serious, driven characters, Douglas was adept at roles requiring a comic touch, as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, wherein he plays a happy-go-lucky sailor who is the opposite in every way of the brooding Captain Nemo (James Mason). The film was one of Walt Disney's most successful live-action movies and a major box-office hit. He manages a similar comic turn in the western Man Without a Star (1955) and in For Love or Money (1963).
Douglas suffered a stroke in January 1996 that left his speach partially impared though he has remained active in film, stage, and public appearances. He also actively blogs on his myspace page making him the oldest celebrity blogger at 94.
For more information about Kirk Douglas please visit: Wikipedia
Kirk Douglas' Filmography
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Out of the Past (1947)
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
I Walk Alone (1948)
The Walls of Jericho (1948)
My Dear Secretary (1949)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Champion (1949)
Young Man with a Horn (1950)
The Glass Menagerie (1950)
Along the Great Divide (1951)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Detective Story (1951)
The Big Trees (1952)
The Big Sky (1952)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
The Story of Three Loves (1953)
The Juggler (1953)
Act of Love (1953)
The Jack Benny Program (television, 1954)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
The Racers (1955)
Ulisse (U.S. title: Ulysses, 1955)
Man Without a Star (1955)
The Indian Fighter (1955)
Lust for Life (1956)
Top Secret Affair (1957)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Vikings (1958)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
The Devil's Disciple (1959)
Strangers When We Meet (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Town Without Pity (1961)
The Last Sunset (1961)
Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
The Hook (1963)
The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)
For Love or Money (1963)
Seven Days in May (1964)
In Harm's Way (1965)
The Heroes of Telemark (1965)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
The Way West (1967)
The War Wagon (1967)
Once Upon a Wheel (documentary, 1968)
A Lovely Way to Die (1968)
The Brotherhood (1968)
The Arrangement (1969)
There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
To Catch a Spy (1971)
The Light at the Edge of the World (1971)
A Gunfight (1971)
A Man to Respect (1972)
The Master Touch (1972)
Scalawag (1973)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973)
Posse (1975) Also director
Once Is Not Enough (1975)
Holocaust 2000 (1977)
The Fury (1978)
The Villain (1979)
Saturn 3 (1980)
Home Movies (1980)
The Final Countdown (1980)
The Man from Snowy River (1982)
Remembrance of Love (1982)
Eddie Macon's Run (1983)
Draw! (1984)
Amos (1985)
Tough Guys (1986)
Queenie (television, 1987)
Inherit the Wind (1988)
Oscar (1991)
Veraz (1991)
The Secret (television, 1992)
A Century of Cinema (documentary, 1994)
Greedy (1994)
Diamonds (1999)
It Runs in the Family (2003)
Illusion (2004)
Meurtres à l'Empire State Building (U.S. title: Empire State Building Murders, 2008)
Before I Forget (documentary, 2010)
Out of the Past (1947)
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
I Walk Alone (1948)
The Walls of Jericho (1948)
My Dear Secretary (1949)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Champion (1949)
Young Man with a Horn (1950)
The Glass Menagerie (1950)
Along the Great Divide (1951)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Detective Story (1951)
The Big Trees (1952)
The Big Sky (1952)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
The Story of Three Loves (1953)
The Juggler (1953)
Act of Love (1953)
The Jack Benny Program (television, 1954)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
The Racers (1955)
Ulisse (U.S. title: Ulysses, 1955)
Man Without a Star (1955)
The Indian Fighter (1955)
Lust for Life (1956)
Top Secret Affair (1957)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Vikings (1958)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
The Devil's Disciple (1959)
Strangers When We Meet (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Town Without Pity (1961)
The Last Sunset (1961)
Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
The Hook (1963)
The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)
For Love or Money (1963)
Seven Days in May (1964)
In Harm's Way (1965)
The Heroes of Telemark (1965)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
The Way West (1967)
The War Wagon (1967)
Once Upon a Wheel (documentary, 1968)
A Lovely Way to Die (1968)
The Brotherhood (1968)
The Arrangement (1969)
There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
To Catch a Spy (1971)
The Light at the Edge of the World (1971)
A Gunfight (1971)
A Man to Respect (1972)
The Master Touch (1972)
Scalawag (1973)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973)
Posse (1975) Also director
Once Is Not Enough (1975)
Holocaust 2000 (1977)
The Fury (1978)
The Villain (1979)
Saturn 3 (1980)
Home Movies (1980)
The Final Countdown (1980)
The Man from Snowy River (1982)
Remembrance of Love (1982)
Eddie Macon's Run (1983)
Draw! (1984)
Amos (1985)
Tough Guys (1986)
Queenie (television, 1987)
Inherit the Wind (1988)
Oscar (1991)
Veraz (1991)
The Secret (television, 1992)
A Century of Cinema (documentary, 1994)
Greedy (1994)
Diamonds (1999)
It Runs in the Family (2003)
Illusion (2004)
Meurtres à l'Empire State Building (U.S. title: Empire State Building Murders, 2008)
Before I Forget (documentary, 2010)
Early Days Productions: Kirk Douglas 12/07/2011
Full Movie: Paths of Glory (1957)
The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack. Written by Keith Loh
