THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 87 FEBRUA RY 12, 2020
Photographed by Joe PuglieseFURY
: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX/PHOTOFEST.
SPARTACUS
: UNIVERSAL/PHOTOFEST.
LIFE
: MGM/PHOTOFEST.
LEAGUES
: WALT DISNEY CO./PHOTOFEST.
A Hollywood Era Ends
With an Exclamation Point
S
o tenacious, vital, powerful and in con-
trol was Kirk Douglas that, if you had to
guess which big Hollywood star would
live to 100 and beyond, he would have to have
been anyone’s first pick.
Douglas was always intense, especially in
his early days, when his oft-clenched anger and
fury matched the crime melodramas in which
he was most frequently cast. He was a lower-
class New York street kid, raised to use his wits
and cunning. Still, he could wear, and wear
well, fancy garb, and he had terrific hair and a
muscular build that was evident in suits and
when he stripped to the waist, which he made
a point of often doing; there was something of
the preening show-off about him. But it was
his sense of determination that dominated
everything, marking his character and perfor-
mances no matter whom he played.
Douglas made a point of pushing limits; for
him, the dramatic and the physical seemed
unusually intertwined, certainly with his all-
in performance as a boxer in Champion in 1949.
Perhaps no other actor in the 1950s played as
many gruesome and bloody scenes as he did;
for kids going to movies during that decade,
witnessing Douglas’ Van Gogh cutting off his
ear in Lust for Life was disturbing enough, butfar worse was the star having his eye gouged
out in The Vikings, which pushed new boundar-
ies for bloody violence in 1958.
The turning point for Douglas came in 1960,
when he took control of his own career with
Spartacus. Unlike most of the other Roman-era
pageants of its time, this one had no religious
messages but, rather, concentrated on politics,
spectacle and, naturally, violence. The star
served as executive producer and ran the show,
beginning with firing the original director,
Anthony Mann, after a week’s shooting, mak-
ing way for Stanley Kubrick.
Spartacus marked the zenith of Douglas’
career but also the beginning of his descent;
after 1962, he appeared in nearly 40 more
films, but few of them are worth talking about.
Especially disappointing — particularly to
him — was that he’d grown too old to play the
lead in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a prop-
erty he’d long harbored and ultimately passed
along to his son Michael, who produced.
Olivia de Havilland is still with us, at 104,
and Norman Lloyd is 105, so there remain a few
studio-era stars in the 21st century. But with
Douglas’ passing, the end of a major chapter in
the history of Hollywood is over, marked not
with a period but with an exclamation point.By Todd McCarthy
From top: Douglas as the slave Spartacus in the 1960 Stanley
Kubrick film; a press photo of the actor as Dutch painter Vincent
Van Gogh for the 1956 biopic Lust for Life; with Peter Lorre in the
1954 adventure movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.‘YOU’RE NEVER GOING
TO MAKE IT TO 30’
T
he Fury was
my first star-
ring role. This
was a real big deal
for me. And I had a
certain way of working,
getting myself there
emotionally to play
the character. I wasn’t
very experienced in
front of the camera
at all. So, while Brian
De Palma was setting
up shots, I was sitting
in my little direc-
tor’s chair, in my own
world, concentrating
on where I’m at in the
scene — I was taking
it really seriously and
getting myself into
an emotional state.
And as tears were
rolling down my face,
Kirk came over to me.
“Are you all right?”he asked. I told him I
was just preparing. He
said, “Amy, first of all,
you’re what, 23 or 24
years old? You’re never
going to make it to 30
if you put that much
into everything while
they’re lighting the
set. My advice to you
is, A, save it and use
it when the camera is
rolling. And, B, did you
not hear what lens he
was using on this shot?
With that lens, you’re
going to be the size of
a pea on the screen.
It really doesn’t mat-
ter how emotional you
are.” It was a really
good lesson. And he
was right. I probably
would not have made
it to 30 if I had not had
that sage advice from
Kirk Douglas. — AS TOLD
TO BENJAMIN SVETKEYAmy Irving The Fury (1978)
Amy Irving and Douglas
co-starred in 1978’s The Fury.