Kirk Douglas, one of the last superstars of Hollywood’s golden age of cinema, who was renowned for his intense, muscular performances in Spartacus and Paths of Glory, on Wednesday died at the age of 103.
The US leading man, producer and director came to prominence in the late 1940s and never lost his popularity, taking on nearly 100 movies over a six-decade career that endured beyond a severe stroke in his later years.
His death at his family home in Beverly Hills, California, was confirmed by his son, Michael, the Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker.
Photo: AFP
“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” Michael Douglas said on Facebook. “To the world he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years.”
Tributes poured in from across Hollywood and around the world on social media, with many declaring: “I am Spartacus,” in a nod to Douglas’ legendary role as a rebellious Roman slave.
Director Steven Spielberg said that Kirk Douglas “retained his movie star charisma right to the end,” while actor Danny DeVito tweeted: “103 years on this earth. That’s got a nice ring to it! Great hanging with you, man.”
Seinfeld star Jason Alexander praised him as “an absolute legend of a star and human,” saying that “we could use a true Spartacus.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, tweeted: “Goodbye to a Hollywood legend.”
Not unlike his title character in Spartacus, Kirk Douglas was known throughout his life for his fiercely rebellious streak.
In his early movie days, he would clash with studio heads over his choice of roles, before ultimately splitting off to form his own production company, Bryna — one of the first major post-war stars to do so.
“It was pretty rare then,” Variety senior vice president Tim Gray said. “Kirk Douglas was very stubborn, but he wasn’t self-indulgent — he wasn’t a party boy wasting people’s time showing up late, things like that.”
On Spartacus, Kirk Douglas hired Dalton Trumbo — one of the “Hollywood Ten” blacklisted as a suspected communist under the [Joseph] McCarthy era — to write the screenplay.
Unlike many producers during the time, he refused to hide this fact, instead using Trumbo’s real name in the credits.
Kirk Douglas missed out on taking home the trophy on each of his three Oscar nominations, the last for his performance in the 1956 film Lust for Life, and never won a competitive Academy Award.
He was instead granted an honorary lifetime achievement statuette by the Academy in 1996 — just months after his stroke — “for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community.”
Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch to Jewish-Russian immigrants in upstate New York in 1916, began as a stage actor before serving in the US Navy during the World War II.
He graduated to movies when Casablanca producer Hal Wallis signed him in 1946 and he became a star for his portrayal of a double-crossing and womanizing boxer in 1949’s Champion.
His subsequent roles would often mirror his real-world, larger-than-life and intense persona, including Oscar-nominated turns as a ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful and tortured artist Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life.
Douglas told the New York Times in a 1984 interview that he had “always been attracted to characters who are part scoundrel,” adding: “I don’t find virtue photogenic.”
Michael Douglas praised his father’s “commitment to justice and the causes he believed in,” which “set a standard for all of us to aspire.”
“Kirk’s life was well lived and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come,” Michael Douglas added.
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