FEBRUARY 13 • 2020 | 43
VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
K
irk Douglas, the star of
Spartacus, Vikings, Lust
for Life and countless
other Hollywood films, died last
week at 103. Though known for
his leading roles, I’
ll remember
him better for his early-career
turns in many a film noir.
With a prideful air of dignity
hidden in a ruthless air of street-
wise grit, he brought shading
to screen villains in works like I
Walk Alone and Out of the Past.
Across a range of prideful but
withdrawn characters, he embod-
ied a rough brand of masculinity
not often associated with Jewish
actors. His contradictions made
anti-heroes of leading roles and
brought character to simple parts.
He also contended with his role
as a Jewish-American. Born Issur
Danielovitch in 1916, he was
raised in poverty by immigrant
parents in Amsterdam, New
York. Declining an offer to pur-
sue rabbinical studies early in life,
he elected to gamble instead on
the unlikely prospect of a career
onscreen. Shortly after, he attend-
ed Sarah Lawrence University
on a wrestling scholarship before
serving in the Navy from 1942-
1944. Douglas legally changed his
name before enlisting.
His first Hollywood role came
shortly after his return, opposite
Barbara Stanwyck in 1946’
s The
Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a
sinuous gothic thriller.
His stature rose throughout
the ’
40s and ’
50s, his first Oscar
nomination coming with 1949’
s
Champion — also his break-
through leading role. Harnessing
a wiry physicality alongside his
well-honed and wryly chipper
inflections, his dynamism —
already in evidence — was
granted room to breathe.
At the height of his career,
he rarely embodied his Jewish
identity in a public way. Though
he said he fasted on Yom Kippur
while working, he rarely dis-
played that facet of his back-
ground onscreen. Like many
American Jews, he had the priv-
ilege and ability to pass, integrat-
ing into a Hollywood mainstream
that would likely have proved
hostile to a clearer embrace of his
identity or childhood faith.
Blond-haired and blue-eyed,
he was able to move with relative
freedom through an entertain-
ment industry that often required
actors, directors and technicians
to take on names that elided any
visible form of recent immigrant
or non-Christian heritage. There
were notable exceptions — such
as 1953’
s The Juggler (see page
62).
His ambivalent stance
towards Jewish identity shifted
in 1991 following a near-death
plane-and-helicopter collision,
in which he sustained a spinal
injury and several other pas-
sengers were injured or died.
During a harrowing recovery,
he re-embraced Judaism after
years of repressing it in public,
and — according to his memoir
— alone. In 1999, he celebrated a
second bar mitzvah at 83.
George Elkind is a Metro Detroit film
critic.
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remembrance
Kirk Douglas Grappled
with Jewish Identity
GEORGE ELKIND CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Douglas on the set of the movie Eddie
Macon’
s Run during its filming in 1983.