Kirk Douglas celebrates his 103rd birthday today and we would like to raise our glasses and toast his legacy. He is the son of a Russian dressmaker and himself the father of another Hollywood legend – Michael Douglas. So if we compare the two, their unstoppable masculinity, their intelligence, their charisma, their power and their aura have touched every fan of cinema in this world.
Worthy 103 by Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas was in possession of what Keith Richards, another indestructible giant of show business, defined as “the glow” of brightness. A complicated description, but unmistakable when guys touched by the gods appear on screen or on stage. You can electrify millions with just a smile and the persuasive power of unparalleled shine.
Lillian Gish, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, James Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda and Marilyn Monroe, to name just a few of his contemporaries, also burned a glow that we have today admire with the utmost respect. As an actor in the major Hollywood studios, he often worked with adult audiences in mind. In the case of Douglas, the most legendary dimple in history, the smile of cinema as such did not embody all the nuances and chiaroscuro of the human condition. To review the list of directors who had him at their service, we must transcribe the encyclopedia of the best of the 20th century.
Impressive film story
There is no shortage of Billy Wilder, the “Great Carnival”, who anticipated the future essences of the spectacle, and Stanley Kubrick. So he starred in one of the two or three best films by the photographer who was also involved in the obsessive and brilliant direction of “Spartacus”. So this was a historical fable, a revolutionary peplum that also helped bring the author, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, out of the darkness, stigmatized and persecuted by the group of vengeful and drunken madmen under the control of anti-communism and witch-hunt fever.
The monumental, dark, disturbing, romantic, desperate and beautiful “Return to the past” by the unforgettable Jacques Tourneur, hand in hand with another giant, Robert Mitchum, is also not to be forgotten. Yes, we knew thatCinema in the Matrixwould not survive in the dark room. There's only room for a few concessions of recycled Martians in Hollywood these days, but the comfort and stunning filmography of a sometimes delightful and sometimes disturbing story still remains more believable and magnetic. As Norma Desmond but in full possession of her searing clarity, Kirk Douglas could claim that his film career was therefore great. It's more like these old films that have been somewhat forgotten.
