Kirk Douglas was one of the legendary Hollywood actors. He made over 90 movies during his career.
He died on February, 5 2020. So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about his life and career.
- Kirk Douglas was an American actor, producer, director, philanthropist and author
- His birth name is Issur Danielovitch
- He was born on December 9, 1916
- He died on February 5, 2020
- He was from an impoverished family with immigrant parents
- He had six sisters
- He made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck
- Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s
- He was known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films
- During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films
- Douglas was known for his explosive acting style
- Which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity (1961)
- Douglas became an international star through positive reception for his leading role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949)
- The film brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor
- His other early films include Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day, Ace in the Hole opposite Jan Sterling (1951), and Detective Story (1951)
- For the latter he received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor in a Drama
- He received a second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner
- His third nomination for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956)
- The film also landed him a second Golden Globe nomination
- In 1955, 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 has been praised for helping to break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit
- He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), considered a classic, and Seven Days in May (1964), opposite Burt Lancaster
- He had made seven films with the actor
- 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
- Michael Douglas turned it into an Oscar-winning film
- As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas received three Academy Award nominations, an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
- As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs
- He is No. 17 on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest male screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema
- This was the highest-ranked living person on the list until his death
- After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991
- He then suffering a stroke in 1996
- He focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life
- He lived with his second wife (of 65 years), Anne Buydens
- She is a producer
- They stayed together until his death on February 5, 2020, at age 103
- A centenarian, he was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry’s Golden Age
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