Kirk Douglas

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.

Yom Kippur with Issur Danielovitch AKA Kirk Douglas

October 7, 2011 by Robert J. Avrech 11 Comments

Annex - Douglas, Kirk (Spartacus)_02 — Spartacus, 1960, Kirk Douglas as the leader of a slave revolt against the Roman empire.

…In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work … For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD.

—Leviticus 16:29-30

Raised in a traditional kosher home, Kirk Douglas (1916 – ) b. Issur Danielovitch, recalls his impoverished childhood, yet warmly remembers preparations for Shabbat: his beloved mother Bryna cooking traditional Jewish food, baking challah, Shabbat bread, and kindling the Shabbat candles.

Nevertheless, like so many Jews of his generation, Douglas was deeply conflicted about Judaism.

More than anything young Issur yearned to be a real American, and, like so many Jews of his generation, that meant rejecting Torah Judaism in favor of an all-consuming secular humanity. In fact, when Douglas first came to Hollywood he claimed to be half-Jewish. But as he matured as an actor and gained wisdom as a man Kirk Douglas reevaluated his relationship with Judaism.

In his compulsively readable memoir, The Ragman’s Son, Douglas reveals his sense of awe during Yom Kippur.

A Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Prom Night For Issur Danielovitch AKA Kirk Douglas

October 6, 2011 by Robert J. Avrech 18 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 as in, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1946, and A Letter to Three Wives, 1949. But his career exploded into mega-stardom when he played bitter 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 film 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 charm that made Gable the King of Hollywood, nor was Douglas an elegant, urbane gentleman like William Powell.

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

Douglas always felt like an outsider. And his fine memoir, The Ragman’s Son, touchingly reveals a chronically damaged self-image. The only son of illiterate Jewish Russian immigrants, Douglas was terrified of Herschel, his distant, hard-drinking, often violent father. But, like so many Hollywood stars, Douglas was deeply attached to his gentle, long-suffering mother Bryna. In fact, Douglas named his film company Bryna Productions.

kirk douglas bryna — Young Issur Danielovitch with his beloved mother Bryna.

Raised in Amsterdam, New York, twenty-eight miles northwest of Albany, Douglas describes the city as “WASP town.” For traditional Jews from the Ukraine this new world was blessedly free, however anti-Semitism was widespread. And the rage that is at the heart of actor Kirk Douglas has its genesis in his difficult childhood.

In his senior year of high school, young Issur was looking forward to attending the school prom: