Kirk Douglas turning 101, a Hollywood icon who plays tough guys but is a soft-hearted philanthropist offscreen
Kirk Douglas, one of the last survivors of Hollywood’s golden era, will turn 101 on December 9, 2017.
His illustrious career, spanning nearly seven decades, has been filled with triumphs, including three Oscar nominations and an honorary Academy Award for being a creative and moral force in the motion-picture community.
Known for his unforgettable performances in movies such as Champion (1949), Spartacus (1960), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Lust for Life (1956), Douglas, alongside several other iconic actors of the period, set the standard for Hollywood’s tough guy persona, admitting that he’d “made a career playing sons of bitches.”
But if you ask Douglas, the biggest achievement of his life just might be the fact that he helped break the blacklist of the McCarthy era by hiring and crediting screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for Spartacus. Trumbo, a Communist, had been imprisoned in a federal penitentiary for 11 months for refusing to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and his scripts after that used fronts or pseudonyms. After Spartacus, due to Douglas’s intervention in that Stanley Kubrick-directed film, Trumbo was credited for his work, as were other previously blacklisted writers.
Born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, he grew up poor, and his path to glory was a tough one. But Douglas’ wish to become an actor, combined with his hard work, commitment, and dedication, transformed him into a symbol of 20th-century show business and a true movie star.
via ehMac.ca http://ift.tt/2irZZYP
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire