Once upon a time, long ago, Kirk Douglas reigned along with some fellow godlike creatures known as movie stars. Before YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram these were the men and women who earned our adoration for their work onscreen, whose names were splashed across the pages of the celebrity and gossip magazines. Names like Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Richard Burton, Burt Lancaster and yes, Kirk Douglas. Icons all.
Looking at Douglas today, at 100, squint and you can still see just what a hottie—and brooding, manly man actor—he used to be. And that famous cleft in his chin? They can’t take that away from him.
At the height of his fame in the 1950’s and 60’s, Douglas has appeared in over 90 films throughout the course of his career, working well into his nineties. Although he was nominated for three Best Actor Academy Awards—for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life—Kirk Douglas never won an Oscar; in 1996 he was given an honorary award for “For 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community.’’
A friend to fans of movies based on books, Douglas made plenty of them. Take a look at the posters below. Maybe you even read some of them!
Happy Birthday Kirk Douglas.
One of the last living movie stars.
