Legacy of a chisel-chinned champion of the silver screen

KIRK Douglas is the last of the great leading men of Hollywood's so-called Golden Era.

Best known for his role as the Roman slave leader Spartacus, Douglas played a string of uncompromising, intense and often unsympathetic characters in a career spanning more than 70 years.

He has earned three best actor nominations at the Academy Awards – for his roles in the films Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life – and gained an honorary award in 1996 for his 50 years as a "creative and moral force in the motion picture community".

His distinctive dimpled chin and brooding good looks have graced more than 90 movies, including such classics as Ace in the Hole, Paths of Glory, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and, his personal favourite, Lonely Are The Brave.

Not just an actor, Douglas is also a noted producer, director, and author – and his reputation off-screen is as tough as the characters he often portrayed on it.

For Dr Martin Shingler, senior lecturer in film and radio at the University of Sunderland, Douglas' importance lies in the way he set new trends in male stardom.

This is his legacy, he argues, because many stars since the 1960s have adopted similar methods and identities in order to become major players in the American film industry

Douglas was one of the first stars to break free from the shackles of the Hollywood studio system by setting up his own independent production company, Bryna Films, in 1955.

"In this way, Douglas was one of the first stars to establish a new way for elite actors in Hollywood to manage their careers and become what was later referred to as 'hyphenates' – star-directors, star-producers, star-writer-director-producers," says Dr Shingler.

"This is now common in Hollywood – George Clooney, for example – but Douglas was doing this long before it was a general practice, operating as the producer of his own films and other people's films, moving into directing films and even taking a hand in co-writing screenplays."

Dr Shingler also points to Douglas as one of the first actors to raise the bar in terms of the male physique.

"As one of the hard body muscular stars of the 1950/60s, he prefigured the 1980s body-built stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone – stars who combined physical action with a display of their spectacular bodies.

"With his background in wrestling, he had this body from the start of his film career in the mid to late 1940s but it only really became evident in the widescreen Technicolor epics such as Spartacus in 1960.

"Here, he proved he not only had a sensational physique but could also hold his own against some of the world's most acclaimed actors, namely Lawrence Oliver and Charles Laughton."

Douglas is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, drawing on methods based on those of Konstantin Stanislavsky, involving script analysis and a psychological engagement with his characters.

"It was this technique that helped him produce his Oscar-nominated performances in films such as Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life in 1956," says Dr Shingler.

"His portrayal of the troubled and tormented artist Vincent van Gogh was certainly one of his greatest performances. It was also one that chimed with the 'angry young men' heroes of John Osborne's plays and the British New Wave films of the early 1960s, seething with a barely repressed anger and frustration, self-lacerating – literally – and self-destructive."

Dr Shingler also points to the actor's involvement beyond the film industry, as a campaigner and activist – or what is now referred to as 'actorvist' – as part of his legacy.

"Of course, in another way his legacy lies with his children, who have carried on the family tradition, most notably his sons Michael – an actor and activist – and Peter, a producer," he adds.

"Clearly both sons are accomplished high-achievers but they also undoubtedly find the task of filling their father's shoes a challenge given Kirk Douglas' range of accomplishments across the fields of acting, directing, producing and activism."

Dr Shingler says Douglas had a "magnificence" that was evident his early film roles, adding: "Chisel chinned, square jawed and broad shouldered, this magnificence was clear for anyone to see long before Widescreen and Technicolor expanded his scale and brilliance in Hollywood's bid to compete with television in the 1950s and 60s.

"Widescreen cinema required stars of a greater magnitude than ever before and Kirk Douglas, alongside Burt Lancaster and Charlton Heston, had the body and persona to occupy and dominate the expansive screen.

"He, like so many of his performances, was larger than life. As he reaches 100, he may also prove to be longer than life."

As a tribute to Kirk Douglas, Darlington Film Club is screening Lonely Are the Brave at The Forum on Borough Road at 7.30pm on Monday, December 12. Tickets are £3, including free popcorn.