KIRK DOUGLAS ON HIS MOVIES

Champion (1949): Douglas’ star-making performance in his eighth film won him the first of three Oscar nominations, as a ruthlessly ambitious boxer with a minuscule fuse.

My agents fought with me not to do that picture. They wanted me to do a picture with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner called ‘The Great Sinner,’ an all-star production at MGM, and I wanted to do this little picture that had no money to pay me. They didn’t know who the hell Stanley Kramer or Carl Foreman or any of those people were. But this character fascinated me. He was really one of the first anti-heroes, a real bastard.

* Ace in the Hole (1951): A cynical Billy Wilder drama with Douglas playing an enterprising reporter who milks a tragic news story to promote himself.

I wanted to soften the character at the beginning, but I remember Billy saying, “Give it both knees!”

* The Bad and the Beautiful (1953): Douglas won his second Oscar nomination for his performance as a megalomaniacal film director.

Generally speaking, we don’t know how to make movies about filmmaking; they come off phony. And I thought Lana (Turner) did probably the best acting job she ever did in that film. * 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954): In a departure from heavy drama, Douglas played a happy-go-lucky sailor aboard Walt Disney’s version of Jules Verne’s sub.

For a guy who doesn’t sing, I did sing in several movies, and this was one. I sang “I’ve Got a Whale of a Tale,” and they even made me record it. I used to kid Sinatra about that--”We ought to exchange records.” * Lust for Life (1956): Douglas received his third Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh, perhaps his best-known role.

A difficult movie to do because it was so painful. It was easy to study the life of Van Gogh; all you had to do was read the book of his letters to Theo, and you could read between the lines. So I felt I understood him, and that was painful, really painful. I felt so sorry for him. * Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957): Douglas played Doc Holliday to Burt Lancaster’s Wyatt Earp in this version of the famous shootout.

It’s considered, I think, one of the most successful Westerns ever made. The script was mediocre, but Burt and I had a chemistry that made the thing work. Most of the biggest love stories in movies are always between men--Spencer Tracy and Clark Cable, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. There was that kind of strange, affectionate relationship between the good guy and the bad guy. * Paths of Glory (1957): A tragic, angry war parable, with Douglas finding the French military bureaucracy more life-threatening than the battlefield.

After I saw “The Killing,” I said (to director Stanley Kubrick), “You’re a very talented fellow, do you have any movies you’d like to do?” He had “Paths of Glory.” I read it and said, “I don’t know if this will make a nickel, but we’ve got to make this.” ... (Later, he rewrote the script) and I thought it was terrible.... I was furious. I tossed the script away. I said, “What the hell are you doing?” “Well,” he said, “I want to make it commercial.” ... I said, “Look, we’re either gonna go back and shoot the original script or we’re not gonna make the movie.’ And we shot the original script.” * Spartacus (1960): Another Kubrick film, this one featuring Douglas as the leader of a slave rebellion in Rome.

When I did “Spartacus,” I said “Look, let’s make this like a little movie, where the characters are bigger than the background.” Sometimes that word epic has with it the connotation of a big movie where the background usually overwhelms and flattens the characters. But here I think they’re all round and full. * Lonely Are the Brave (1962): Douglas played a sweet-natured contemporary cowboy whose good intentions only get him hunted by the law.

I don’t often play such a likable character because I’ve never hesitated to play bastards and unscrupulous men. He was a human being, he loved people, and he was an anachronism, somebody who should have been born in a different age. I just loved that guy.... The only thing I ever complained about was that at the end people had more feeling for the horse than they did for me.

* Seven Days in May (1964): A political thriller, scripted by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, produced and pushed through by a persistent Douglas.

It wouldn’t be difficult to make a movie now like that, but at that time, my God, to make a movie about a military plot to overthrow the American government, it was shocking. But before we made it, I was at a buffet luncheon in Washington and President Kennedy was there, and he stopped me with a plateful of food and we talked about a half-hour about that. He had read the book, loved it, thought it would make a great movie, and encouraged me about it.

* Tough Guys (1986): Douglas’ most recently released theatrical feature, an action-comedy, reteamed him with frequent co-star Burt Lancaster as aging train robbers back in action.

I have great admiration for Burt, I really do. I wish to hell he’d get well. He deserves it, he’s worked so damn hard. It’s sad for me to think of this great physical specimen ... I thought a lot about Burt when I was in the hospital from this crash, where suddenly you’re helpless. (As an actor) you learn to juggle, skip rope, run the oars, mount horses; whatever you have to do, you learn to do everything--and suddenly, you feel helpless. It jolts you. And I hope Burt comes out of it.