Remembering Kirk Douglas

When I was a little kid, one of only two movie theaters in the small town I lived played a re-release of Walt Disney’s live action rendition of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This was the first time I ever saw Kirk Douglas in a movie. It was also the first time I saw James Mason in a movie, but it was Kirk Douglas who enthralled me as Ned Land. I went home wishing I had a dimple in my chin so I might look as cool as Kirk Douglas.

Throughout my adolescence, and into my early teens I saw on television Kirk Douglas in a number of movies. I can still remember the outrage I felt when the rabbit ears on our television stopped picking up a signal while smack dab in the middle of watching The Vikings (1958) starring Douglas and Tony Curtis. It would be several years later before I was able to watch that movie in its entirety and thanks be to cable television.

Before cable I was able to watch him play the Gentleman Caller in Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie. His softer charm book-ended by his gruffer performances in 20,000 Leagues and the first half of The Vikings and Spartacus, which also happened to have Tony Curtis in it. Douglas as Spartacus was just plain ultra-cool. I was at that age when I didn’t even notice that Curtis played a Roman slave speaking in a Brooklyn accent (I am dah singa of da songs), that whole damn movie was cool.

I was still just a kid and saw several more movies with Douglas in it because they were movies with Kirk Douglas in it. Lonely Are the Brave, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Lust for Life and Man Without a Star. Most of these movies were made before I was even born and Kirk Douglas was a movie star for my parents era, but he was still cool in my mind. By the time I reached highschool I was able to see movies I wasn’t allowed to watch before.

Actually, my mom was more than a little freaked out when she saw I had rented Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (and probably more than a little freaked out that I thought this movie was ultra-cool) but she let me watch it anyway. Being an instant Kubrick fan I was surprised to learn he directed Spartacus. Upon learning Kubrick directed Path’s of Glory I rented the video as soon as it was made available. I had remained a Kirk Douglas fan throughout my childhood.

As his star began to wane younger actors were rising. Both Paul Newman and Robert Redford had teamed up to play Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid. Before that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway starred in Bonnie and Clyde deconstructing hero myths and blurring white hats and black hats into a sea of gray hats. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duval all starring in The Godfather, helped cement this new wave of cinema that seemed to celebrate the notorious villains.

It’s not as if Douglas wasn’t in dark movies or didn’t play villains. His first film was The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, followed by Out of the Past, both film noir, where he played really bad men. It’s not as if these films celebrated or downplayed the wickedness. Film noir does embrace an element of eroticism that might have led to the late 1960’s and early ’70’s outright celebration of bad people. Part of what made film noir so popular was it’s titillating sexual innuendo that had a tendency to romanticize bad people.

Still, the lines between black and white were obvious. As he aged and the new generation of actors shined, he maintained a film presence in plenty of westerns among others, eventually succumbing to films of self-parody such as The Villain, Draw!, and Tough Guys. Because these movies featured Kirk Douglas I was sure not to miss them, although The Villain had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann Margret in them as well, so I probably would’ve seen it anyway.

As I was growing up and Kirk Douglas was getting old, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Bobby De Niro were of more interest to me. I definitely saw The Fury because he was in it, but so was Amy Irving and it was directed by Brian DePalma! I guess I would’ve seen it anyway. Saturn 3 had Douglas in it but it also had Farrah Fawcett. When he starred in The Final Countdown, I was more interested in it because it had Martin Sheen than because of Douglas.

When watching The Man from Snowy River, where Douglass played a dual role as brothers, there was sense of nostalgia that came over me. He was just as cool as he ever was, but his day seemed mostly over. If anyone told Douglas his career was over he apparently paid no attention to that and just kept working. In 1996, however, he suffered from a stroke that greatly impaired his ability to speak. Embracing rigid therapy he was able to appear at the Academy Awards to give his acceptance speech for his Lifetime Achievement Award. I watched with a clenched jaw but still cried.

Remarkably, the ever so cool Kirk Douglas continued to work, although much less so. He appeared in an episode of the Simpson’s a few months after his stroke and an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. In 1999 he starred in Diamonds alongside Lauren Bacall and Dan Ackroyd. In 2003, Douglas starred in It Runs in the Family that also featured his son Micheal and his grandson Cameron. The latter I didn’t even bother to watch. It struck me as too gimmicky and it was poorly reviewed.

Of course, plenty of his films were poorly reviewed. Frankly, I never thought he was all that great of an actor, but boy was he cool. Not necessarily Steve McQueen cool or Jack Nicholson cool but he sure could steal a scene like Nicholson. Nicholson I consider to be a much better actor than Douglas but I to this day thoroughly enjoy watching a number of his films. Spartacus is clunky and sometimes boring but I love that movie.

The same goes for Champion, The Vikings, The Glass Menagerie and even 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The latter being that film that first introduced me to Kirk Douglas sitting in that huge theater with my legs too short to reach the ground, eyes wide with amazement. I wanted to be like Kirk Douglas back then and I still do. I want to be successful like he and live to be 103 years old, dying of natural causes peacefully.