by Kirk Douglas
KIRK:
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, my son Michael has made me inordinately proud with his devotion to charitable causes. On my ninety-fifth birthday, December 9, 2011, Michael wrote me a letter in which he said he was funding a playground in Israel in my honor. It was a thoughtful and generous gift. He knew how good it would make me feel.
Michael and I have a very close relationship. It was not always that way. We explored our evolution as parent and child in a 2005 HBO documentary called A Father… A Son: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s an extraordinarily honest—at times funny, at others painful—look at our family dynamic. All of my boys, my wife Anne, and “our ex-wife” Diana are among those weighing in.
Was I a good father? It’s a question I posed to Michael in the documentary and many times since. That’s why this handwritten letter from him is so precious to me:
Happy Birthday Dad,
Wow 95! What do you get someone who has everything, including wisdom and the love of his family? Well as I mentioned in N.Y., I’m going to sponsor the 401st playground of the Douglas Foundation at the Kfar Chabad in Anne and your name. It just seemed so appropriate, with the organization’s 95th trip of young Jews from the Ukraine and Bella Russe, to Israel in your 95th year.
You ask me “was I a good father?” You are a good father! I could not be more proud of you and how you have conducted your life.
Little Issur to Kirk Douglas was an incredible achievement, but your third act is truly inspirational. I love you Dad, you make me proud to be your son. Thank you for setting the bar so high.
Michael
afterword
ANNE:
I have decided to let my husband—the celebrated actor, producer, author, philanthropist, centenarian—have the last word. After all, getting me to share my side of our marriage was his idea, and now he can write whether he still thinks it was a good one.
KIRK:
Thank you, darling. This process was easy for me. I’ve always loved talking about myself, and you’ve always loved talking about me. That’s one of the secrets to our long and happy marriage.
Looking back at our many decades together from your viewpoint has been a revelation. Your stories have given me a fresh perspective on many of our experiences, and I thank you for talking about them and how they affected you.
For those readers who worry that the world we live in is a mess, I hope you will see that every generation faces challenges. Somehow we get past them.
Thank you to all—participants and readers—who have taken the journey with us. And thank you to everyone who allowed us to reprint their correspondence for this book.
We wish everyone a love as enriching as ours and a life filled with sharing and caring.
Anne, age fourteen, at boarding school in Switzerland.
Anne’s beloved childhood governess, Trulla.
A summer snap of Anne’s sister Inge with their mother.
Beauty on the beach—relaxing between crises at Cannes.
Champion wrestler Izzy Demsky (top row, second from left) with his teammates at St. Lawrence University.
Young actor ready to work—Kirk’s 1941 American Academy of Dramatic Arts graduation photo.
Oh, brother! Kirk and his six sisters.
Kirk and Frances Woodward in a soon-to-be-forgotten play on Broadway.
A star is born: A 1946 publicity still of producer Hal Wallis with the Broadway actor he signed for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.
Anatole (Tola) Litvak, director of Act of Love (1953) and Anne’s good friend, during Klosters, Switzerland holiday (1954).
Anne and Anthony Quinn in Rome, 1953, during the filming of Ulysses.
Anne and her “awful wedded husband” after exchanging vows in Las Vegas.
Daddy shows Peter the view from the top.
Eric and Peter at home in Beverly Hills with their parents and maternal grandmother.
All-star entertainment at SHARE Boomtown gala: (left to right) Tony Martin, Dean Martin, Kirk, Jimmy Durante, and Tony Curtis.
Laurence Olivier chats backstage at the Palladium with “Boit” and “Koik” before they do their act at the “Night of 100 Stars,” July 24, 1958.
Cyd Charisse, Kirk, columnist Louella Parsons, and party hosts Denise and Vincente Minnelli at a celebration for the cast of Two Weeks in Another Town (1962).
Commanding both sides of Broadway in 1963 with a revival of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea playing across from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Airport reception and press conference at Haneda Airport, Japan.
Inaugurating the Lutheran World Federation’s Mobile Canteen for Child Feeding in Hong Kong, March 12, 1964.
Meeting Indira Ghandi on a goodwill stop in India, March 26, 1964.
Anne and Kirk portrait by Arthur Zinn, 1964
Anne gets a lesson in traditional dance techniques at the Royal Dancing School in Thailand, March 6, 1964.
Arriving in Poland on an eastern European goodwill tour, April 1, 1966.
In Harm’s Way (1965) stars John (never Duke) Wayne and Kirk in Hawaii, waiting for the cameras to roll.
Casting a giant shadow in Israel, Kirk and Yul Brynner between takes with little Eric and Anne, 1966.
Apollo 14 astronauts Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepherd have a down-to-earth moment with Anne and Kirk at the Kennedy Space Center the day before the launch on January 31, 1971.
Henry Fonda and Kirk on location in Australia for filming of There Was a Crooked Man (1970).
Kirk and Danny Kaye say “mazel tov” to Jimmy Cagney, AFI Life Achievement Award winner in 1974.
Thomas Dye School moms Nancy Reagan and Anne Douglas work the hot dog booth at the annual fair.
Greeting President Reagan at Sunnylands New Year’s Eve, 1976: (left to right) Ambassador Walter Annenberg, Anne, and Kirk.
Kirk and Helen Hayes with Lady Bird Johnson at the Johnson Library on December 11, 1977, to celebrate her sixty-fifth birthday with a reading of the Johnsons’ love letters.
Kirk takes a break from filming The Chosen in Jerusalem in 1977 to offer a prayer at the Wailing Wall.
Coffee at the White House with First Lady Nancy Reagan.
Anne’s sister Merle and Kirk on Christmas Day, 1987, in Palm Springs.
Kirk with Hollywood’s bipartisan newlyweds, Kennedy offspring Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became a good friend of the Douglases after their visit in 1988.
Anne and Kirk, photographed by friend Roddy McDowall.
Kennedy Center Honorees of 1994. Top: Kirk Douglas, Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, and seated: Harold Prince and Morton Gould.
At home after the 1996 Oscars, the family celebrates Kirk’s post-stroke appearance.
Celebrating Tel Aviv’s fiftieth anniversary with Sally Field and Goldie Hawn.
Anne visits Kirk on the set of Diamonds (1999), his first film post-stroke.
Michael and Catherine Zeta-Jones hear some words of wisdom from the Bar Mitzvah “boy.”
Kirk and Don Rickles share Jewish jokes at Kirk’s second Bar Mitzvah, at age eighty-three.
“Douglas of Arabia” rides while Anne walks through Petra with the Jordanian Minister of Culture during a 2000 visit with King Abdullah and Queen Rania.
Kirk visits Douglas Park in 2000.
With “mishpucha” (family) at Kirk and Anne’s fiftieth anniversary and second wedding.
A big grin from the new centenarian at his birthday bash, December 9, 2016.
A tender moment between Anne and Lauren Bacall during the Douglases’ Jewish wedding on May 29, 2004.
acknowledgments
THE OLDER I GET, THE FASTER THINGS SEEM TO MOVE. Kirk and Anne was merely an idea in April 2016, when Anne first brought me our correspondence. I was amazed to relive the emotions of our early years of courtship and marriage. That became the backbone of our book. I am grateful to my wife for being such a prudent caretaker of our memori
es.
Now, we would like to appreciate those who have shared the journey with us.
Marcia Newberger, who has handled my publicity for years, was the biggest help. She coordinated all the letters and interviewed me. Our friend David Bender interviewed Anne without my presence. She told him stories I had forgotten or never knew at all. I thank him for recording them.
I must thank Running Press senior editor Cindy De La Hoz for her help in readying the manuscript, and for her professional eye in selecting photos to illustrate our story.
My assistant, Grace Medinger, as always, motivated me to keep going and eased the process with her computer skills and her transcription of hours of interviews. I appreciate her contribution to the process.
Lastly, my wife, Anne. Thank you, darling, for taking the leap of faith to write this book with me. I am grateful for your love, support, and encouragement.
I would also like to acknowledge my family and especially the grandchildren, who give Anne and me such joy. I hope they won’t be shocked by the intensity of the love letters their Oma and Pappy wrote! Perhaps they will come to value, even in this technology-driven world of instant communication, the joy of writing and receiving non-electronic letters—particularly when it comes to love.
photo credits
Cover: Arthur Zinn
Here: Christopher Briscoe
Here: UPI, Bettmann Newsphotos
Here: Universal Pictures Archives
Here: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Here: Larry Dale Gordon
Here: George Keeley
Here: Arthur Zinn
Here: Roddy McDowell
Here: Michael Jacobs
Here: Michael Jacobs
Insert page 17, top and middle: Michael Jacobs; bottom right: Christopher Briscoe
All other photos from the Douglas Collection
letter credits
Tony Curtis: From the Estate of Tony Curtis
Burt Lancaster: By permission of the Lancaster family
Robin Williams: The Robin Williams Trust
Henry Kissinger: Reprinted with the permission of Henry A. Kissinger
Charlton Heston: © Charlton Heston 2002. Permission by Heston Family Estate
Nancy Reagan: Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute
Billy Crystal: By permission of Billy Crystal
Robert Downey Jr.: Exxie Unlimited, Inc.
Barack Obama: Letter provided by the Office of the Former President Barack Obama
John Wayne: Batjac Productions, Inc.
Harry Cohn: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures