Kirk Douglas: Devil of a Writer

Kirk Douglas says he never gets lonely when he writes. “I play all the roles, act them out in my mind, the women, the children. Writing isn’t lonely for me because I’m always with the characters I’ve created. And my wife says my writing has probably kept me from doing two or three lousy movies.”

The newest novelist on the celeb circuit was feted at a cocktail party hosted by literary agent Irving Lazar and Random House at Spago Tuesday evening. Fans, friends and media types crushed into Spago’s back patio room, which became more and more like a sauna as the evening wore on.

Random House Publisher Joni Evans was pleased with the sales for “Dance With the Devil” and with critics’ initial notices. “There’s an initial resistance (to a book like this); what do we need Kirk Douglas to be a novelist for? He’s too talented in too many other directions. I was prepared for that resistance, and I tried to prepare Kirk for that.”

“The reviews are just coming in, and I was very pleased with the New York Times review,” said Douglas, looking cool in a tan suit. “I must say I was prepared to have somebody kick me. . . . I thought they were going to say, ‘This actor does his autobiography, now he comes out and writes a novel--who does he think he is?’ Well, I think I’m a writer.”

So does his son Michael. “He constantly amazes me,” he said. “With his ability to juggle, play the ukulele, paint, all these languages he’s learned, then to latch onto this, I think it’s so wonderful.”

And will the son follow once again in his father’s footsteps and write a book himself?

“I can’t even imagine it,” he said. “Dad says I should think about getting a microphone or jotting things down, but to actually start from scratch, structuring things . . . I can’t imagine it right now.”

Among the guests gasping for breathing space were Douglas’ wife, Anne; other Douglas progeny, Joel and Peter; Irving and Mary Lazar; Carol and Walter Matthau; Barbara and Don Rickles; Jack Lemmon; Joanna Carson; Gloria and Jimmy Stewart; Fox’s Barry Diller; Motown’s Suzanne de Passe; Dani Janssen; Quincy Jones; George Schlatter; sculptor Marjorie Rothstein; Jack Valenti; Dinah Shore; Frank Gifford; Pat and Michael York; Gene Kelly, and Lance and John of the Hollywood Kids, who evidently had not crashed but were expelled by Lazar anyway.