The Play’s The Thing

While searching for a new school superintendent after the $200-million Belmont fiasco and the bitter ouster of Ruben Zacarias, the Los Angeles Unified School District should have considered the husband-and-wife team of Kirk and Anne Douglas, who in less than three years have helped renovate 93 playgrounds for public school students from Granada Hills to San Pedro.

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Q: How did you become L.A.’s chief playground benefactors?

Anne Douglas: I read an article in The Times, and there was a photograph of a school playground in terrible shape--the asphalt was all broken up, and it was too dangerous for children to play in. They had to go in the street to eat their sandwiches. The article said most of the playgrounds looked like this. So I called the mayor, who invited me to breakfast at 8 o’clock in the morning--not exactly my hour. Within 25 minutes, we raised $2.5 million. The mayor’s foundation gave half a million. My friend, a daughter of the [Wilbur] May Foundation, she gave a million. And we gave a million.

Kirk Douglas: The pathetic thing is here we are, the richest country in the world, in a period of prosperity. These things should not exist, because the foundation of our country is all about our children.

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Q: Have any other aspects of the schools’ deterioration raised your indignation?

Anne: It’s not only the teachers who are complaining. Now the children are saying, “My God! These toilets haven’t functioned in months, and nobody’s ever come to fix them.” They don’t even have doors in the University High restrooms. When I hear about this, it’s really appalling.

Kirk: (Jokingly) Honey, I will not allow you to go and try to fix the toilets.

Anne: Oh, come on!

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Q: Ever test out playground equipment yourselves?

Kirk: In one playground they had these 40-foot-high poles, with a wire running between them, and in a harness you fly down the wires. And what do you think? My wife climbs up there and she does it!

Anne: I felt like a 14-year-old kid!

Kirk: I said, “Honey, why did you do it?” She said, “Because I was afraid that if I didn’t do it, you, with your bad back, would have.”

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Q: Any plans to expand your focus?

Airk: Anne, unlike me, is very modest. Her plan is eventually to do the whole state of California. She’s even written letters to the president.

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Q: At the 93 playground dedication ceremonies you’ve done, have any children recognized Kirk from “Spartacus”?

Anne: There was a little girl at this elementary school, and I asked her, “Do you know who that is?” and she said, “No.”

Kirk: This is ruining me, because I used to be known as the father of Michael Douglas. And now I’m beginning to be known as the husband of Anne Douglas.