HAPPY birthday, Kirk Douglas, 100 years old today and the proud owner of a solid gold CV that’s practically untouchable in Hollywood history.
When you look back over that career, it’s no surprise he made it to centenarian status either. His on-screen creations were varied, sure, but if one thing united them across the decades it was grit and determination – Douglas rarely played a character that wasn’t a fighter.
Whether he was leading a slaves’ revolt in Spartacus, the film that would probably define his on-screen persona forever, painting a warts-and-all portrait as Vincent Van Gogh in Lust For Life or punching his way out of hard times in The Champion, Douglas was a survivor. That furrowed brow and dimpled chin jutted through every big-screen appearance with a laser-focussed self-belief and turbo-charged drive.
It’s there in career highlights like Ace In The Hole, where he nails the part of a morality-free journalist looking out for one last career-saving scoop, and The Bad And the Beautiful, which takes apart the Hollywood star system with a precision rarely seen since.
His 'survival at all costs' attitude lit up any number of films across a raft of genres, adding an irresistible, never-say-die heart to melodramas and gangster flicks alike. That defiant stance and piercing stare elevated him to the A-lister status that even declining on-screen opportunities and ill health (he suffered a stroke in 1996) couldn’t take away.
Much of that determination was derived, it would seem, from his grim childhood brought up by Russian Jewish parents in upstate New York. Family affection was thin on the ground and the young Kirk, born Issur Danielovitch, had to scramble along with his six sisters for what he could get to survive.
His early years played out like a lurid B-movie plot, with regular beatings dished out on account of his Hebrew schooling and his constant struggle to raise the cash to pursue his dream of acting. From the more standard route of waiting tables and taking whatever menial jobs that came his way, he even turned to pro wrestling at one point in his quest to pay his drama school fees.
“My father was the toughest guy in town” he once famously said. “He was always fighting and I became a fighter too.”
Douglas has needed that powerful fighting spirit in recent times as he’s survived a helicopter crash that killed two, grappled with the horrifying after effects of that stroke that left him unable to speak and contemplating suicide, and watched his family's acting dynasty dissolve in a miserable mess of addiction and tragedy.
Those hard-won life scars inform his work, though – you can feel the darkness and determination to succeed. It’s certainly there in my favourite of his performances, in Kubrick’s Paths Of Glory where he plays a French army officer charged with defending soldiers accused of cowardice. Heroic would hardly cover it.
With three Oscar nominations, two Golden Globes and over 90 films to his name, his talent and status as a true cinematic icon are undeniable.
