Kirk Douglas - Premiere Magazine

WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST? GETTING TO ACT WITH HIS ALSO-LEGENDARY (AND SIMPLED) SON IN A FEW GOOD YEARS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. DOUGLAS—NOT ONLY ARE YOU CELEBRATING YOUR 86TH YEAR THIS MONTH, YOU’RE ALSO RELEASING YOUR 72ND FILM, A FEW GOOD YEARS, COSTARRING YOUR SON MICHAEL. JEEZ, NO WONDER IT’S BEEN SAID THAT YOU’RE “THE MALE JOAN CRAWFORD….NEVER TOO OLD FOR ONE LAST COMEBACK.”
[laughs] Yeah, well, last week someone sent me a clipping and it said I was “the Mike Tyson of actors.” So that’s very good—from Joan Crawford to Mike Tyson!

YIKES. SO HOW’D THIS MOVIE HAPPEN?
Well, I’d worked with all my sons except Michael, and we had a script we were planning to do, and then [in 1996] I had my stroke. So Michael said, “Dad, don’t worry, you just work with the speech therapist, and we’ll make the movie.” That annoyed me, so I said, “Why don’t YOU work with my speech therapist and then when you talk the way I talk, we’ll do the movie!” [laughs] I loved working with him; he really was a good actor—

in spite of the fact that after the first thing he did in college, I went backstage and he asked, “How was I?” and I said, “You were awful!” I thought, “That will cure him and he’ll go be a lawyer.” But two months later he said, “I’m in another play.” I said, “Oh, my God,” and I went to see him, and this time, when he said, “How was I?” I had to say [resignedly], “You were very good.” And he’s been very good ever since.

YEAH, BUT RIGHT BEFORE FILMING A FEW GOOD YEARS—WHICH MICHAEL PRODUCED—YOU VOWED IN THE PRESS TO BE “A TEMPERAMENTAL ACTOR” JUST FOR KICKS. SO…WERE YOU?
Probably—I mean, I don’t think my stroke changed me THAT much. [laughs]

AND YOU ARE SPARTACUS. DO YOU THINK THAT’S THE FILM YOU’LL MOST BE REMEMBERED FOR?
I have no idea. I don’t know if it’s my best picture—I like Paths of Glory and my favorite is Lonely Are the Brave—but I feel grateful to have a handful of pictures that will hang around, because there’s a lot of them I want to FORGET.

AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL HOLLYWOOD LIBERAL, YOU’VE SAID YOUR PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT WAS BREAKING THE McCARTHY-ERA BLACKLIST BY GIVING DALTON TRUMBO CREDIT FOR THE SPARTACUS SCREENPLAY.
That’s right—I think everyone should try to do something to change the world, even a little bit, and putting Dalton’s name on Spartacus was, for me, one of those things.

YOU KNOW, YOUR FAMOUS CLEFT CHIN IS LIKE ITS OWN SPECIAL EFFECT IN SO MANY OF YOUR FILMS. SO I WAS WONDERING: DID YOU EVER WAKE UP AND FIND LINT IN IT?
[big laugh] No, not that I know of! But, I tell you, my grandson Dylan, Michael’s youngest, who’s two years old, looks like Catherine [Zeta-Jones], but he has the biggest dimple, bigger than MINE.

SPEAKING OF CATHERINE AND MICHAEL, YOU’VE SAID THAT IN TWO YEARS, FOR YOUR 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY WITH YOUR WIFE, ANNE, YOU PLAN TO HAVE AN EVEN BIGGER WEDDING THAN THEIRS.
Well, I hope so—if I stick around. But first, I’m going to propose to Anne again, and I hope she’ll accept because after 50 years she might just say, “I’ve had enough, include me out!” [laughs]

DON’T COUNT ON IT. OKAY, LISTEN: YOU’VE BEEN MAKING FILMS FOR 56 YEARS AND, DESPITE A HELICOPTER CRASH [IN 1991] AND YOUR STROKE, YOU’VE NOT ONLY CREATED A HUGE BODY OF WORK—AND WRITTEN EIGHT BOOKS, TOO—YOU’VE ALSO OUTLIVED ALL YOUR PEERS. THAT LEAVES YOU AS THE VERY LAST OF THE PROTOTYPICAL HOLLYWOOD TOUGH GUYS. DO YOU MISS YOUR OLD FRIENDS?
Yes—when I go to my office there are posters on the walls, and it’s like a roll call of the dead: There’s Burt Lancaster, who I miss greatly, there’s Walter Matthau, Anthony Quinn, Laurence Olivier, and on and on. I think, “What the hell am I still DOING here?”

MAYBE HANGING AROUND TO WIN AN OSCAR TO GO WITH YOUR HONORARY ONE?
Well, I am still young so, hell [laughs]—who knows?