Wow! Happy Birthday, Kirk Douglas!!
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Shadow2700 — 9 years ago(December 08, 2016 06:43 AM)
How We Should Remember Kirk Douglas on His 100th Birthday
As he approaches his 100th birthday on December 9, Kirk Douglas is both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while a first-magnitude star, was never quite an indelible one, save maybe for the dimple in his chin, never one who seemed to capture the zeitgeist the way some of his contemporaries did. Arriving in Hollywood when it was transitioning from classical acting to the Method, he was part traditional actor, part Method. Handsome but occasionally petulant, he was both pretty boy and thug. He could be cool, but also explosive, both iceberg and volcano. And perhaps above all he was always both outsider and insider the man who never quite fit comfortably into any peg-hole.
By now most Jews know that Douglas was born Issur Danielovich to two illiterate Russian Jewish immigrant parents, in Amsterdam, New York, not far from Albany. He grew up destitute, a nobody, as he later put it, and he grew up resentful. First out of survival and then out of professional necessity, he tried to hide his roots, as he edged from Issur Danielovich to Izzy Demsky and finally to Kirk Douglas, a name he chose for himself after graduating from St. Lawrence University and embarking on his acting career. He moved to New York, got a scholarship to the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts, found himself on Broadway, and then was lured to Hollywood when a friend and fellow Jew, Lauren Bacall, who had preceded him there, passed his name to producer Hal Wallis.
From poor first-generation Eastern European Jew to Hollywood star Douglass was an assimilationist fairy tale. But the assimilation was never complete, which may have been a Jewish actors occupational hazard. There wasnt much room for Jewish actors in Hollywood unless they foresook their Jewishness. Paul Muni, born Muni Weisenfreund, buried himself in make-up and other ethnic identities; it was said he answered the door in costume. Edward G. Robinson, born Emanuel Goldenberg, made his career playing Italians. Swarthy Jeff Chandler, born Ira Grossel, played Cochise in Broken Arrow. And John Garfield, born Julius Garfinkel, affected an average American Joe.
Douglas accommodation was one of the most unusual. His Jewishness was too stubborn to shake, even if he wanted to shake it, and in any case, he was extremely ambivalent about doing so. Virtually alone ab68mong Jewish stars, he played Jews, including a Holocaust victim in The Juggler and Israeli colonel Mickey Marcus in Cast a Giant Shadow. Issur was like a second self or, maybe, a first self. And of all the divisions that roiled in him, this seemed the most significant: the division between Issur and Kirk. It gnawed at him, haunted him, rebuked him. In his autobiography, The Ragmans Son, he frequently recalls episodes of anti-Semitism as Issur/Izzy and others, later, as Kirk, when gentiles thought he was one of them and could talk openly about their Jew hatred. And what emerged then, in the man and in the performances, was rage rage at his childhood poverty, rage at his shiftless father, and rage at the anti-Semitism that surrounded him and taunted him. There was an awful lot of rage churning around inside of me, he confessed in The Ragmans Son. Kirk Douglas was the virtuoso of rage. A lot of that was Jewish rage.
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Other stars of that era, the late 1940s and 50s, brooded and seethed. It was almost de rigeur for a character to be writhing in psychological turmoil. Montgomery Clift, James Dean, and, of course, Marlon Brando were all tortured souls misunderstood rebels, chafing against the culture and challenging the mores and aesthetics of button-down 50s America. While they did erupt under pressure Brandos eruptions were historic these were always veiled cri de coeurs of men in anguish lashing out at their hurts and pleading for help.
Off His Feet: Kirk Douglas in the 1957 film Top Secret Affair.
And then there was Douglas. Douglas didnt convey that sense of woundedness of a man wronged by an implacable world. Douglas was just plain angry, and his characters were closer to derangement than those of any other major star. His face was often clenched, which is how impressionist Frank Gorshin would imitate him, and his famously affable grin could, and often did, instantly turn into a snarl. There is a scene in William Wylers Detective Story where Douglas, playing a cop on the trail of an abortionist, discovers that his beloved wife has had an abortion. The volcano erupts. I would rather go to jail for twenty years, he yells viciously, than to find out my wife is a tramp. It erupts again in Lust for Life where Douglas plays Vincent Van Gogh crossing the line into madness. It erupts in Champion where Douglas plays a hell-bent boxer who uses and discards everyone on his way to the top, and again in Young Man With a Horn where he turns on his men -
roman2886 — 9 years ago(December 08, 2016 01:26 PM)
Happy 100th birthday Kirk Douglas I can't believe he is already 100 I hope he lives longer he is only 10 years older than the Queen she will be 100 in 10 years I hope she will lives longer even longer than 100 I wonder what's his secret too long live I wonder what's the Queens secret too long live.
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jeff-kutach — 9 years ago(December 08, 2016 10:36 PM)
Happy 100th Birthday Mr. Douglas, a very Happy Birthday to you. Thank you so very much for so many great performances, and so many characters you became, brought to life, thank you for all you've contributed to the movies. Happy birthday, sir, hope you have a great one, and wish you good health.
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Aloysius_von_der_Trenck — 9 years ago(December 09, 2016 02:57 AM)
Today, December 9, 2016, he turns 100, though in his autobiography,
The Ragman's Son
, he explains why they always celebrated it on the 14th.
His parents, Herschel (later Harry) and Bryna (later Bertha, though he recovered her old name for his production company) Danielovitch, would have been so happy had they known that their beloved son Issur (later Izzy, later Kirk) would become so famous, would have a famous son and would eventually become a centenarian!!
And since he is an Amsterdamer, a native, I propose a toast:
http://www.taleofale.com/2010/04/dont-bother-with-amsterdam.html
Issur Danielovitch Demsky: mazel tov! hurrah!
hurrah
!! HURRAH!!!
(Navigator and Explorator: Ulisse (1954), The Vikings (1958), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), &c.) -
Mr_Beale — 9 years ago(December 09, 2016 03:31 AM)
Happy 100th b-day!
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