Kirk Douglas



Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, December 9, 1916) is an American film and stage actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Vikings (1958), Spartacus (1960), Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), The Heroes of Telemark (1965), Saturn 3 (1980) and Tough Guys (1986). He is one of the last remaining stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

He is No. 17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends in American film history, making him the highest-ranked living person on the list. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community". A social activist, Douglas played an instrumental role in ending the Hollywood blacklist in 1960 by openly crediting Dalton Trumbo as the writer of Spartacus' screenplay.