On His 100th Birthday, Kirk Douglas Looks Back – And Ahead

Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne, are shown here in 2013

Los Angeles

Kirk Douglas — actor, director, producer, author, philanthropist and, yes, Torah student — is celebrating his 100th birthday on Friday, and there is a special treat in store for the centenarian.

Douglas has been under strict medical orders to abstain from alcohol, but his cardiologist, Dr. P.K. Shah, promised the actor that if he made it to 100, he could have a glass of vodka. So at an afternoon tea party at an event space in Beverly Hills, Shah will be in attendance to personally administer the medication.

Some 150 other guests will fete Douglas, ranging from his extended family, including three sons and seven grandchildren, to old friends like director Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Don Rickles and other Hollywood luminaries.

Also on hand will be Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles, who has directed Douglas’ weekly Torah studies for many years. Rabbi Wolpe also officiated at the actor’s second bar mitzvah, when Douglas — then only 83 — declared, “Today, I am a man.”

Hosting the event on Friday will be Kirk Douglas’ son, Academy Award-winner Michael Douglas, and his wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who will also welcome leaders of numerous charities and institutions in the United States and Israel that have received approximately $118 million over the years from Douglas and his wife, Anne.

“You have to give back,” Douglas once explained. “I came from abject poverty. I didn’t dream of becoming a millionaire. So you have to pay back.”

The Ragman’s Son

On Dec. 9, 1916, the future Kirk Douglas was born in the upstate New York town of Amsterdam as Issur Danielovitch, the son of an illiterate Russian-Jewish immigrant who supported his family of six daughters and one son as a rag picker and junkman. Douglas’s rise to one of Hollywood’s top male stars in the 1950s and ‘60s is the stuff of American legend.

In most of his 87 movies, the blond, blue-eyed boy who once laid tefillin every morning was now cast as just about the toughest, roughest guy around. But this is only part of the story. Douglas is the author of 11 books, including harsh childhood  recollection, explaining the Holocaust to his children and love verses to his wife, as well as tracing his recovery from a helicopter crash, stroke and attempted suicide.

Douglas is now reading the proofs for his 12th book, co-authored with his wife and titled, “Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter and a Lifetime in Hollywood.”

With all these accomplishments, ask Douglas about his proudest recollection and he will point to his act of moral courage in breaking the Hollywood blacklist of alleged communists during the McCarthy red-hunting era. He did so by insisting that the name of writer Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted for a decade, be publicly credited for the “Spartacus” screenplay, despite warnings that such a provocation would likely end Douglas’s own Hollywood career.

Fasting and Lana Turner

Most of his old friends who will attend the party are familiar with another of the actor’s talents — for pithy observations on life, love and advice to future generations.

On religious observance: “I don’t think God wants compliments. God wants you to do something with your life and to help others.”

On the appeal of Torah study: “The Torah is the greatest screenplay ever written. It has passion, incest, murder, adultery, really everything.”

In his heyday, when Douglas was as famous for his egocentricity and womanizing as his screen roles, he spared little time and interest for his Jewish heritage. However, he observed, “I always fasted on Yom Kippur. I still worked on the movie set, but I fasted. And let me tell you, it’s not easy making love to Lana Turner on an empty stomach.”

Kirk was upstaged by his second and current wife at the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary in 2004. The former Anne Buydens, whom he met while on location in Paris while filming “Lust for Life,” startled the guests by announcing that she had converted to Judaism.

“Kirk has been married to two shiksas,” she declared. “It’s about time he married a nice Jewish girl.”

Douglas has always had a special spot in his heart for Israel. In “The Juggler,” he starred in the first Hollywood feature to be shot in the Jewish state, returning later for “Remembrance of Love” and “Cast a Giant Shadow.”

Shortly before his 100th birthday, Douglas recalled a blessing he first pronounced on his 90th birthday. “In the Jewish tradition, a birthday gives a person special powers and if he issues a blessing, his blessing will come true,” he said.

“I bless all the people in the land of Israel that the current conflicts resolve themselves, that no more people die or are hurt, and that you can continue your lives in peace.”

Tom Tugend writes for the JTA global news agency and wire service.

Caption: Kirk Douglas is shown above with his wife, Anne, at Sunset Tower in West Hollywood, Calif., on Feb. 24, 2013. (Mark Sullivan/WireImage)

 

You May Also Like
Orioles Sale to David Rubenstein Group Approved by Major League Baseball
David Rubenstein

The product of a blue-collar Jewish family, the Baltimore-born Rubenstein, 74, is a multi-billionaire lawyer, businessman and philanthropist.

Two Orthodox Men Attacked in Northwest Baltimore While Walking to Synagogue
Mt. Washington

Baltimore County Police and Shomrim are searching for a black Kia Optima with the license plate 4BA3705.

Manischewitz Announces Rebranding of its Product Line
Manischewitz

The rebranding of the nation's leading kosher brand comes shortly before the start of the Festival of Freedom.

A New Era for the O’s
Jackson Holliday

Even the great "Earl of Baltimore," Earl Weaver, never had a lineup with as much raw talent as the 2024 Orioles team, writes Michael Olesker.