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RIP Kirk Douglas


Mighty Favog

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RIP. 

 

In 1960, I saw a true, audience opinion card sneak preview of Spartacus in Oakland CA.   Kirk Douglas had made an extraordinary emotional and economic investment in the success of the film, and this was one of its first public showings.  Douglas was there, sitting with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and probably Stanley Kubrick (I didn't know what Kubrick looked like, then).  Before the  film started, Douglas kept laughing, joking, and flashing his bright white teeth.  My companion said, "He looks like he's three sheets to the wind!"  Wouldn't you be?  It didn't seem to shorten his lifespan.

 

A good liberal who put his money where his mouth was, he used to like to dance with Nancy Reagan at events.  They got along fine, political disagreements aside, until his son, visiting one of the Reagan kids, yelled "Boo, Goldwater!" when he saw a Goldwater bumper sticker on one of the Reagan cars.  I don't know if the incident permanently damaged their relationship.

 

Thanks, Kirk, for giving Dalton Trumbo an on-screen writing credit before anyone else would, thanks for Lonely Are the Brave, Spartacus, 7 Days in May, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and William Wyler's Detective Story, one of the first films to deal with violence on the part of a police officer.

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