Kirk Douglas – a life in pictures
Kirk Douglas, the last great star of Hollywood’s golden age, once said he had ‘made a career playing sons of bitches’, a career that began in 1946 with the film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Douglas was Oscar nominated three times – for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust For Life – but had to be content with the honorary award he was eventually given in 1995.
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Kirk Douglas in 1946, the year he made his debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Photograph: A L Whitey Schafer/Getty Images
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1947. Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas on the set of Out of the Past
Photograph: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
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1949. Marilyn Maxwell and Kirk Douglas in Champion, produced by Stanley Kramer and directed by Mark Robson
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
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1950. The Glass Menagerie. Kirk Douglas and Jane Wyman
Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/20 Century Fox
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1950. Hoagy Carmichael playing piano and Kirk Douglas playing trumpet in a scene from Young Man with a Horn
Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
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Kirk Douglas in 1951 film Ace in the Hole
Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
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1952. The Bad and the Beautiful
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
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1954. Kirk Douglas bones up on his Russian in preparation for a broadcast to Iron Curtain countries over Radio Free Europe. The actor had been accused of having the literary knowledge of a fifth-grade Russian student due to the lack of educational and cultural advantages in the US.
Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
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1956. Kirk Douglas poses beside a self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, painted in 1886-1887, to show his remarkable resemblance to the great painter. Douglas played the role of Van Gogh in Lust for Life.
Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
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1957. Director Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas on the set of Paths of Glory
Photograph: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
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Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in Gunfight at the O. K. Corral
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
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1958. Character Einar seethes after losing an eye in The Vikings
Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
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1959. Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick filming Spartacus. Kubrick makes notes on his script while Charles McGraw, left, and Douglas discuss a forthcoming scene
Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
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1964. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas from Seven Days in May
Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Seven Arts
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1967. Kirk Douglas as Senator William J Tadlock, in The Way West, directed by Andrew V McLaglen
Photograph: Ernst Haas/Getty Images
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1977. Kirk Douglas poses during an interview in his hotel room in New York.
Photograph: Michael Tighe/Getty Images
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1978. Douglas plays a former CIA agent in The Fury
Photograph: Kobal
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1986. Douglas and Burt Lancaster in Tough Guys
Photograph: Touchstone Pictures/Allstar
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1991. Kirk Douglas and his son Michael Douglas
Photograph: Cine Text/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
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2001. Actor Kirk Douglas poses for a photo during an interview at his home in Beverly Hills
Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP
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2014. Kirk Douglas poses for a portrait in Beverly Hills, California. He had made it abundantly clear that he was done with writing on a recent overcast afternoon at his Beverly Hills home, days before the release of his poetry collection Life Could Be Verse: Reflections on Love, Loss, and What Really Matters. ‘To me, this is my best book, and my last book,’ said Douglas
Photograph: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP
