Kirk Douglas

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

May 5, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“I was never beautiful like Miss Hayworth or Miss Lamarr. I was known as ‘the little brown wren’. Who’d want to get me at the end of the picture? I thought I was the plainest, most unattractive thing ever, and glamour was something I felt was far beyond my grasp. But—and isn’t it funny?—now when I look at my old movies I think I was the most gorgeous creature—simply divine!”
—Bette Davis, 1973

Hidden Hollywood: Issur Danielovitch AKA Kirk Douglas Can’t Get a Prom Date

February 6, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 12 Comments

kirk douglas hs photo — Kirk Douglas as a high school senior.

In the beginning of his legendary career, Kirk Douglas (1916 – ) b. Issur Danielovitch, was almost typecast as a well-meaning but ineffectual husband in two fine films, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1946, and A Letter to Three Wives, 1949. But his career ascended into mega-stardom when he played cynical heroes motivated by rage: Champion, 1949, Ace in the Hole, 1951, The Bad and the Beautiful, 1952, Paths of Glory, 1957, Spartacus, 1960, and his favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, 1962,

Douglas was never a conventional leading man. Though handsome as a fairy tale prince, he wielded his masculine beauty like a weapon. There was none of the gruff, working class charm that made Gable the King. Douglas was not an urbane gentleman like William Powell, nor a witty charmer like Cary Grant.

Kirk Douglas excelled at playing, in his own words, “sons of bitches.”

Friday Photos: In Every Generation

April 9, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 19 Comments

Bookstore in Jewish Quarter, Paris ca. 1920

On Passover, Jews around the world recite a passage from the Haggadah that strikes a note both poignant and defiant.

In every generation they [our enemies] rise up against us to destroy us, but the Holy One Blessed Be He saves us from their hands.

But Judaism does not place faith in faith alone. Man is born with free will and G-d expects us to exercise that free will in order to do what is right.

Jewish law holds—as does common sense—that it is incumbent to strike preemptively at your enemies before they attack you. Because Jewish history shows with Newtonian certainty that when people threaten to kill Jews — they mean it.

Our IslamoNazi enemies in Tehran have made it quite clear that they intend to annihilate the Jewish State. Barack Obama has, at the same time, made it even more clear, that he couldn’t care less about Israel or the Jewish people. To this doctrinaire Marxist who has made common cause with Jew-haters for his entire academic and political career, Israel is just an annoying and illegitimate neocolonial outpost in the Middle East.

In every generation they rise up.

The surprise is that the American people and 74% of American Jews rose up and freely elected one of our bitterest foes.

A few photos to enjoy over the next few days.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s: Spartacus

July 26, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 30 Comments

Kirk Douglas in Spartacus. — Kirk Douglas in *Spartacu*s.

We continue our survey of the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1920s click here.

2. Spartacus, 1960

He wanted Hur.

More than anything, Kirk Douglas yearned to play Ben Hur. But director William Wyler had another actor in mind for Hollywood’s most coveted role. Adding insult to injury, Wyler offered Douglas the mustache-twirling role of Hur’s enemy, the villainous Messala. His pride wounded, Kirk Douglas refused to play a supporting role — not even to Charlton Heston, Hollywood’s supernova star.

Years later, Douglas confessed: “That was what spurred me to do it [Spartacus], in a childish way—the ‘I’ll-show-them’ sort of thing.”

Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovich Demsky, an impoverished Jewish kid who remained angry and resentful of authority his entire career.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Ace in the Hole, The Bad and the Beautiful, Singin’ in the Rain

February 7, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 37 Comments

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For a complete listing of the greatest movies of the 20, 30s and 40s, click here.

Kirk Douglas in Ace in the Hole, 1951. — Kirk Douglas, *Ace in the Hole*, 1951.

4. Ace in the Hole, 1951

A hand-embroidered motto, “Tell the Truth” sits as a dusty epitaph on the newsroom wall of an inconsequential Albuquerque newspaper where Kirk Douglas, a cynical New York reporter, hustles a job.

Sent out to cover a local rattle snake hunt, Douglas stumbles on a man trapped inside a cave, and turns it into a “human interest” story that explodes on the national scene and becomes — entertainment.