Breaking: Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas has died. The 'Spartacus' star and producer helped end the Hollywood blacklist. He was 103.
Kirk Douglas, the dimple-chinned screen icon who was known for bringing an explosive, clenched-jawed intensity to a memorable array of heroes and heels in films such as “Spartacus” and “Champion” and for playing an off-screen role as a maverick independent producer who helped end the Hollywood blacklist, has died. He was 103.
Never a fan of the Hollywood studio system — he likened the standard seven-year studio contract to slavery — Douglas launched his own independent production company in 1955. “I immediately focused on him because he was different,” Basinger told The Times. “He wasn’t a traditional leading man, really, in looks, and yet he had an unmistakable charisma and power on screen — not just the glamour of the movie star, though he did have that, but real acting chops. So you knew he was going to be a star.”
Unable to afford college after graduating from high school in 1934, he worked in a department store for a year and played John Barrymore in a little theater production of “The Royal Family.” During his two years at the academy, Douglas began dating fellow acting student Diana Dill, whom he later married and with whom he had two sons, Michael and Joel. He also became friends with another academy student: Betty Bacall, who, as Lauren Bacall, would later help set Douglas’ Hollywood career in motion.
Douglas made his film debut as the weak-willed, alcoholic husband of the rich and powerful heiress played by Stanwyck in the 1946 melodrama “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.” In early 1949 — five months before the release of “Champion” — Douglas’ wife sued him for divorce. In his book, Douglas said he had been unfaithful. She died in 2015 at the age of 92.
Douglas said, however, that both he and Lewis felt deeply about “the injustice of the blacklist.” And during production of the Stanley Kubrick-directed film in 1959, Douglas wrote, he told Trumbo that once the film was in the can, “not only am I going to tell them that you’ve written it, but we’re putting your name on it.”
Trumbo’s son, Christopher, told The Times in 2003 that Douglas had been “highly instrumental in ending the blacklist” and that his father had always been grateful. The play, which Douglas produced and starred in as the irrepressible Randle P. McMurphy, who feigns insanity to get out of doing work while in prison and is sent to a mental institution, closed two months after it opened. It was one of the biggest disappointments of Douglas’ career.
In 1981, President Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Two years later, he received the Jefferson Award for his public service; and he later received the French Legion of Honor.In 1991, he suffered a severe back injury when a helicopter he was a passenger in collided with a small plane during takeoff at Santa Paula Airport; the two men in the plane died. Then, in early 1996, he suffered a stroke.
Though panned by Roger Ebert, the critic nevertheless noted that, “As a demonstration of Kirk Douglas’ heart and determination, it is inspiring.”
Indonesia Berita Terbaru, Indonesia Berita utama
Similar News:Anda juga dapat membaca berita serupa dengan ini yang kami kumpulkan dari sumber berita lain.
Kirk Douglas, Hollywood Icon and Spartacus Star, Dies at 103BREAKING: Kirk Douglas, Hollywood icon and Spartacus star, dies at 103
Baca lebih lajut »
Kirk Douglas, longtime influential movie star, dies at 103LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kirk Douglas, the muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in 'Spartacus,' 'Lust for Life' and dozens of other films and helped fatally weaken the Hollywood blacklist,...
Baca lebih lajut »
Kirk Douglas, Legendary ‘Spartacus’ Star, Dies at 103Kirk Douglas, the dimple-chinned “Spartacus” star with the larger-than-life persona, died Wednesday. He was 103. He was the father of actor Michael Douglas and paterfamilias of a Hollyw…
Baca lebih lajut »
Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas dies at 103Kirk Douglas 'acted like a star when he was a nobody,' producer Stanley Kramer once remarked. 'He came at you,…
Baca lebih lajut »
Actor Kirk Douglas Dead at 103Kirk Douglas has died at the age of 103.
Baca lebih lajut »