Kirk Douglas on the greatest achievement of his career: “The most important thing I’ve done”
Known for his fiery and commanding performances, Kirk Douglas is one of the few people in Hollywood with a genuine rags-to-riches backstory, and he later became one of the most influential actors of his time. After being drafted to fight in World War Two, Douglas then pursued his dream of becoming an actor and found his debut role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946. He quickly sky-rocketed to fame and became the leading man in films such as Ace in The Hole, Paths of Glory and Spartacus, collaborating with legendary director Stanley Kubrick at the start of his career by taking roles in his lesser-known films. However, when Douglas was asked about what he was most proud of in his career, he surprisingly didn’t mention his acting work.
At the height of Douglas’ career, the creation of the blacklist was causing havoc in Hollywood, with Senator McCarthy creating a list of people that were banned from finding work in the film industry due to their suspected ties to communist parties. Many screenwriters, directors, and actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, John Garfield, and Orson Welles, were affected by this list, and they were unable to work on any movies for nearly a decade.
However, this particular era was brought to an end by none other than Douglas himself, who worked with blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo on Spartacus during the writers’ trial. Douglas insisted that he receive a writing credit despite the fact that he had been sentenced to 12 months in prison for refusing to cooperate with the investigation into his alleged communist ties. His loyalty to Trumbo and insistence that he be properly recognised for his work is what eventually ended the blacklist and revitalised the career of countless creatives who had been persecuted by this regulation for so long.
When asked about his role in the ending of the blacklist, Douglas said, “I’ve thought about it often, and I think that it is the most important thing I’ve done in my career. Because at the time, McCarthy was leading a witch-hunt, and he was seeing communists everywhere, in Congress and Hollywood… Spartacus was important for me because that was the picture with which I broke the blacklist.”
Although Spartacus is perhaps one of his most revered performances and a pivotal piece of work in Kubrick’s filmography, Douglas is most proud of it for its political role and contribution to this movement, which speaks volumes about his character.
Despite being recognised for his crucial in ending the movement now, Douglas was not always praised for this. At the time, actors such as John Wayne heavily criticised Douglas for breaking these restrictions, with many people discouraging him from speaking out and saying it would ruin his career. When asked about this, Douglas said, “I was an angry young man, yes. If I had been maybe ten years older, I would have said to myself, ‘Wait a minute, Kirk, why not let someone else take the heat? This is going to ruin your career.’”
However, despite the warnings from other people in the industry, Douglas continued to advocate for his fellow creatives, and without this work, who knows how many films that we love today wouldn’t have been made?
