Los Angeles - Over the course of an illustrious Hollywood career spanning more than five decades, Kirk Douglas has played many parts: Vincent Van Gogh, Spartacus and boxer Midge Kelly, to name just a formidable few. But the one character he has never played — to his deep regret, he now says — was that of Issur Danielovitch, his own former self.
Douglas revealed this, and much more, when he opened his Beverly Hills, Calif., home to the Forward for a wide-ranging chat in advance of his newly released memoir, “Let’s Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning” (John Wiley & Sons). Wearing a pale-green cotton sweater, khaki pants and tan canvas Vans, the cleft-chinned former Adonis of the silver screen chatted with us about the importance of living a good life, how to sustain a marriage and, yes, sex. But Douglas reserved his most ardent feelings for a topic that has become close to his heart: the renewed state of his Jewish identity. “Now…,” he writes in his book, “I feel guilty for abandoning Issur Danielovitch.”
It was clear from Douglas’s desire to share his reflections on life — both in person, with a reporter, and on the printed page — that he is painfully aware he is nearing his end. The book, in fact, reads like a self-conscious swan song: a final burst of thoughts and opinions on everything from Jimmy Carter’s recent tome on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the tragic death of Douglas’s son Eric three years ago from a drug overdose. But the book also showcases the vitality and verve still fueling the man who helped break the Hollywood blacklist when he hired Dalton Trumbo to pen the film “Spartacus”: It is sprinkled with a hefty smattering of salacious anecdotes from Douglas’s salad days as a young Hollywood buck — the days when he was known to most women under 30 as something other than Michael Douglas’s father.
Indeed, though it might be easy to forget, Douglas once had a reputation that surpassed his son’s. He writes in stunning detail about his youthful sexual exploits, including one with a German stewardess who would yell in wanton moments, “I’m a Nazi!” cuing him to slap her. Asked if he ever bedded Jewish women, Douglas responded, “I never discriminated.” In fact, he added, in a line sure to make the Jewesses of the world swoon with delight, “I’d say my Jewish ‘friends’ were on the whole more passionate.”
With slightly slurred speech — the result of a stroke he suffered in 1996 — Douglas waxed poetic about more serious topics, as well, including his own history. The child of Russian immigrant parents, he grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home in Amsterdam, N.Y., a small upstate town, where he endured daily run-ins with a street gang who pelted him with pebbles wrapped in women’s stockings and called him such names as “Jew bastard” as he walked home from Hebrew school. He was also a promising student of the Torah who had to beat back his community’s efforts to ship him off to yeshiva.
Douglas first rediscovered Judaism after being in a helicopter crash in 1991. He reconnected with his roots, and had a second bar mitzvah at the age of 83. Now he studies weekly with Rabbi David Wolpe, a Conservative rabbi who occupies the pulpit at Los Angeles’s Sinai Temple. Douglas has also has emerged as a committed Jewish philanthropist, giving money to rebuild playgrounds in Israel — in both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods — and to a multimedia theater at Jewish outreach organization Aish HaTorah’s World Center in Jerusalem, where visitors learn about the history of the Western Wall.
Because Douglas married two non-Jewish women, none of his four sons is technically Jewish, nor were they taught any of the customs and traditions. While Douglas contends in his book that he is not bothered by the fact that his children aren’t Jewish, saying he cares only that they do good in the world, in person he is more candid.
When I asked, sitting in his sprawling front parlor in front of an abstract Robert Rauschenberg painting that contains the word “kosher” in bold letters, whether he is truly remorseless about not having Jewish offspring, he back-pedaled. “That’s half-correct,” Douglas admitted. “You see in the entrance to my home that I have a mezuza,” he said, pointing to the front door. “In it, it says you should teach your children. I never did that.”
But if his sons Peter, Michael and Joel do not practice his religion — Eric was eventually bar mitzvahed during a stint in rehab — they are, he said, acutely aware that their father is Jewish. Resting on a bookshelf, above a copy of Leon Uris’s Holocaust tale, “QB VII,” prominently displayed in the inner sitting room, is an ornate menorah with violet- and peach-colored flower buds for candle holders — a gift from Michael on the occasion of his father’s 90th birthday. “They’ve given me so many menorahs, I have to laugh,” Douglas said, referring to his children. (For his 86th birthday, he added, Michael had 86 trees planted in Israel in his father’s name.)
But it is Douglas’s German-born wife of 53 years, Anne, who may have given him the biggest Jewish-themed gift of all: On the occasion of their “second wedding,” commemorating their 50th anniversary, Anne announced that she was converting.
Judaism may have even skipped a generation in the Douglas line: His 14-year-old granddaughter, Kelsey, decided without any prompting that she wanted to have a bat mitzvah. Douglas said that at first he wasn’t convinced of her seriousness, thinking that she just wanted the extravagant party, but he was proved wrong. She studied hard to learn her Torah portion, he said, and now, even her 11-year-old brother, Tyler, is talking about having a bar mitzvah.
Douglas’s final book — his ninth in a slate that includes two novels — is dedicated to his seven grandchildren. He worries, he said, that they are poised to inherit an intractably troubled world.
“Let’s face it, the world is in a mess,” he said. “Horace Mann, a great educator, once said, ‘Be ashamed to die before you do something for humanity,’ and as I get older, I see how correct that is.”
Rebecca Spence is a staff reporter at the Forward.
I'm tired of Kirk Douglas constantly getting quoted in Jewish publications because of his longevity and supposed return to Judaism. Does his teshuvah cover what allegedly happened between him and a young Natalie Wood? Is that in his latest memoir?
As a child growing up in a household where the Yiddish Forverts was a welcome daily visitor, I was aware quite early of the rather undignified practice of celebrating all those who have discarded their Jewishness on their way to celebrity. I have always been uncomfortable with this cuddling up. Now, your on-line Kirk Douglas story has refreshed these feelings. Yes, Kirk Douglas is a Jew, but the continuing mining of his sexual exploits and his late re-discovery of who he is do not make up for the life-long neglect of his people and the good he could have done. It's too late. Please, let's not get carried away and stop drooling over his "exploits."
Its more important for Jewish adults rather than Gentile children to obey Jewish law.
I say, better late than never! He has obviously had an influence on at least come of his grandchildren.
Thank you for sharing an insightful vist with one of our true icons of film.
Perhaps I misunderstood something but hos is it that his grandchildren who want Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are Jewish and eligible to have them? Is their mother Jewish? The article doesn't say and therefore one must conclude that the author accepts the Reform notion of who a Jew is as the norm. THIS IS WRONG!
Three cheers for Kirk Douglas! I grew up with his roll in Sparticus. Kirk is living legend and he certainly lived and did make it in a society that was extremely hostile to the Jewish religion. You have to do what you have to do to survive and I hand it to him for making it as well as he did. Joseph Hyman
All power to Kirk's arm. Iwell recall the impact he made on me and my teenaged friends when we saw 'Champion'. As I recall he also made a movie about the Jewish general in the american army in WWII. He was obviously making a personal statement there.His gesture in hiring Trumbo wa brave and importantI grew up in a home where my Zaide read Forwerts regularly. I still have a go at reading the Yiddish edition on line.
More baseless hatred from those who have too much time on their hands and too many rocks that would be better left unhurled.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could look on the good deeds of a 90-year old man who is passionate, however belatedly, about his Judaism with anything other than sympathy and respect. Every one of us is in need of tshuvah, and it seems that Kirk Douglas is doing everything he can to acheive this; other people might be capable of doing other things, but there are enough midrashim out there about the four species to make clear that all of us have a contribution to make to klal yisroel, even movie stars, and even people who married for love rather than out of tribal loyalty. His wife has converted to Judaism; his granddaughter is studying for a bat mitzvah; he himself studies Torah every week: what more do you want from this guy? How will people look on your deeds when you, God willing, turn 90?
Mazal Tov,Kirk!
I, too, had an Arab mother and a Jewish father and have been told thatI am not Jewish. My reply has always been the same, "Since i am half Arab and half Jewish, I am more Semite than either race and belong to both!" Ember Nelson author of "The Race Towards the Light: Hardscrabble
Hello Ms. Spence: Today I finished reading "Let's Face It". It's only the second biography I have read. The first was "Reba, My Story." Strange as it may seem, shortly after reading her autobiography I visited my daughter in Los Angeles and we went to the taping of Reba. On her way in the studio she pointed at me and waved. Then, during break, she again, smiled and waved, singling me out from the crowd. When I searched out Kirk Douglas on the internet, the first sight I went into featured Reba and Kirk. How ironic. When I had finished reading Reba's book, it was during a period in my life that was psychologically draining. And about 5 years after reading, "Let's Face It" I had been diagonsed with Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's bewildering, for sure. Maybe I will run into Kirk some day. Ha! Ha! Any way, I was hoping you would do me a favour and send this email to Mr. Douglas. ********************************************************************* Dear Mr. Douglas: You are not just a movie star but more importantly a man who at ninety shines so brightly. In "Let's Face It" you speak brutally honest about your relationships' with your sons. I was not emotionally connected with my father and I realize it's because my father spanked me so hard, with a leather strap, when I was young. I learned shame and worst of all I feared my father. Then when my sister was diagnosed with cancer he became much more loving and I believe remorseful for his harsh discipline. When my father was dying, of cancer, I just wasn't comfortable enough to talk to him and that's been disappointing for me. I have in my hand a short note from my father and it is my most prized possession. When I returned home from work one day, this note was on my kitchen table. Sandra, "I mowed your lawn and had one of your beers". Love, Dad I'm going to frame it. It brings a smile to my face. I've had years of chronic pain and I too was in your shoes with depression. It basically destroyed all aspects of my life. On many occassions, the pain was so unbearable that I would plan out how to die if I just couldn't go on anymore. But I also feared being found and revived and the pain being even worse, that scared the hell out of me. I remembered you detailing a similar episode. Your book has been good for me and you still have a lot of living to do, so I will be interested in hearing about the next ten years. All the best to you and your wife. Sandra
Breathtaking
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