It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to a Hollywood icon; Kirk Douglas has died at the grand age of 103, leaving behind an astounding legacy of several movie greats. The acting veteran passed away on February 5th, with his last movie being 2004's Illusion. We reflect on seven of the actor's greatest movies.
1. Spartacus (1960)
Perhaps his most unforgettable role in his acting career was the title role in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus. Based on the novel by Howard Fast, it follows the events of the Third Servile War and became such a huge cultural phenomenon that it was placed on the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The film was written by the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and went on to win won four Oscars. It also co-starred Laurence Olivier; a West End stage legend.
2. Lust for Life (1956)
Based on the biographical novel of the same name by Irving Stone, Lust for Life saw Kirk Douglas portrayed the legendary Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. The film did win an Oscar, though Kirk missed out on the Best Actor award which instead went to Yul Brynner for The King and I that year. The movie was directed by Liza Minnelli's father Vincente Minnelli.
3. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Kirk Douglas played George Phipps, the husband of Rita, in this romantic drama about a woman who sends her three best friends a message to say that she was running away with one of their husbands, but doesn't say who, leading the women to reflect on their marriages and work it out for themselves. It was adapted from the novel A Letter to Five Wives by John Klempner, and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who won the Best Director Academy Award.
4. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
This romance melodrama marked Douglas' first collaboration with director Vincente Minnelli. It won five Oscars including Best Screenplay, and the titular theme song went down in history as a great jazz standard. It tells the story of a film producer, played by Douglas, who's a particularly unlikeable figure in the industry, who has to work had to gain interest for his new film idea.
5. Champion (1949)
Champion was the boxing drama that catapulted Kirk Douglas to stardom and brought him his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination. Adapted from a short story by sports columnist Ring Lardner, the film portrayed him as a boxer named Midge Kelly who loses all integrity in his quest for success. Some of the shorts from the film were recycled later for another boxing movie he was in; 1999's Diamonds.
6. Paths of Glory (1957)
Douglas worked on two movies with the legendary director Stanley Kubrick, and wartime drama Paths of Glory was the first. It's a poignant anti-war flick set during WW1, where Douglas plays a colonel Dax who is forced to defend his division against accusations of cowardice when he refuses to lead them on a suicide mission. It's yet another adaptation, based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb.
7. In Harm's Way (1965)
He starred alonsgide John Wayne and Patricia Neal, the latter of whom won the Best Foreign Actress BAFTA, in Otto Preminger's World War 2 film In Harm's Way. It was one of the last black and white war epics to be released and is set after the events of Pearl Harbor. The film was adapted from James Bassett's novel of the same name.
Tagged in Kirk Douglas