Tuesday, March 17, 2015

TCR on Films -- "Life Could Be Verse: Reflections on Love, Loss, and What Really Matters" by Kirk Douglas

In Life Could Be Verse, a brief and often affecting volume, actor Kirk Douglas, who recently turned ninety-eight years old, shares poems he has written over the course of his long life and recounts the experiences that inspired the verses.

Kirk wrote his first poem -- about a sailing ship, though he had never seen the ocean -- for an English class assignment as a high school student in upstate New York back when he was still Issur Danielovitch, the child of impoverished Russian Jewish immigrants. He discovered that versifying helped him better understand his thoughts. "Throughout my life I have written poems that express my true feelings," Kirk explains in the book's acknowledgments.

The poems are simple but perceptive reflections set in singsong rhyme and might be called wise doggerel. Here are the opening lines from "Luck" -- They call it 'luck'/It can't be taught/It can't be borrowed/It can't be bought'. Kirk's movie stardom, though discussed in the book, takes a back seat to his roles of son, husband, father, and grandfather.

.

Kirk Douglas now (photo/Dan MacMedan/USA TODAY)
Kirk Douglas is among the few classic studio-era stars still with us in this second decade of the twenty-first century. Olivia de Havilland, Maureen O'Hara, and Doris Day are others. His trademark thick blond hair has turned thin and white and is worn in a ponytail.

In Life Could Be Verse Kirk quickly runs through the highlights of his acting career which began on the New York stage in the late 1930s. There were a few years of struggle and a stint in the Navy during World War II. The big break came in 1945 when producer Hal Wallis (following a tip from young Lauren Bacall, who Kirk had briefly dated when she was a Manhattan teenager named Betty) caught Douglas's performance in the play The Wind is Ninety and lured him to Hollywood.


Kirk Douglas then. With Barbara Stanwyck in The
Strange Love of Martha Ivers
(1946).
To illustrate one of the main points of Life Could Be Verse -- that blunders big and small are inevitable and the best we can do is learn from them and move on carrying greater wisdom -- Kirk relates how he showed up on the set of his first film, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, having memorized the wrong part on his train trip west.  "I apologized and picked up the script as I tried not to hear the tittering laughter of [the film's leading lady] Barbara Stanwyck," Kirk recalls.

The boxing drama Champion (1949) established Kirk as a major star. He went on the make approximately ninety films but his turns as Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956) and a slave revolt leader in Spartacus (1960) may be the only Kirk Douglas roles that a non-movie buff can name.

Doris Kappelhoff (left) Issur Danielovitch, and
Betty Joan Perske, in Young Man with a Horn (1950).
The Committee Room's favorite Kirk Douglas film is Young Man with a Horn (1950), about a brilliant but troubled jazz musician and loosely based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke. His co-stars were old friend Lauren "Betty" Bacall, as a wealthy sophisticate the young man unwisely marries, and Doris Day as the band singer who really loves him. This was the only time any of these performers, whose careers were concurrent, ever worked together. That Kirk appeared only once with Bacall is somehow surprising. That he worked with Doris even this once is more surprising. Kirk and Doris seem to come from different planets in the movie universe.

Kirk's autobiography (1988). was
written before he mellowed with age.
Kirk's own favorite of his films is Lonely Are the Brave (1962) about a modern day cowboy trying to live by the code of the Old West. "I love the theme that if you try to be an individual, society will crush you," Kirk wrote in The Ragman's Son (1988), his frank and decidedly unpoetic autobiography.

The film that proved most important to Kirk's personal life is Act of Love (1953), a now forgotten melodrama set during World War II. While in Paris making the film Kirk met his second, and it would seem final, wife Anne Buydens, an attractive and worldly young publicist assigned to the film. Kirk and Buydens married in 1954. "I have made many mistakes in life. This was not one of them," Kirk says of his second marriage in Life Could Be Verse which is dedicated to Anne.

Among the most touching of Kirk's poems was written after Anne was injured in a fall in their home and had to be hospitalized. Kirk pleads --  Let me go before my wife/Without her I have no life.

Kirk Douglas (center) with wife Anne, son Michael,
and daughter in law Catherine Zeta-Jones. 

The uxoriousness on display in Life Could Be Verse contrasts sharply with the tone of The Ragman's Son, in which Kirk's candor, some might call it braggadocio, in regard to his busy life as a ladies' man makes it easy to forget he has been married for most of his adult life. Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Ann Sothern, Gene Tierney, and Rita Hayworth, are among the A-listers who seem to have been more than friends with Kirk.

Kirk's first wife, the actress Diana Douglas, to whom he was married from 1943 to 1951, is the mother of his famous son Michael. For the record, Diana Douglas, a working actress in stage and television, penned her own entertaining memoir In the Wings (1999). The acerbic Diana, who refers to Kirk somewhat dismissively as "Doug," writes about her affair with Errol Flynn and the challenges she faced raising her sons while maintaining a busy but relatively modest acting career. With perhaps a tinge of envy, she questions whether the level of stardom held by her ex-husband, her son, and other celebrated people she has known, is really something to be desired.

Memoir by Kirk's first wife (1999).
Today, Kirk's oldest boy, no whippersnapper himself at age seventy, is perhaps more famous than his father. There is, as readers will likely expect, a poem about Michael in Life Could Be Verse. In "Michael" Kirk writes -- I became a 'good father'/It took me too long to see/When I needed him/More than he needed me.

Kirk Douglas was once among the most driven and abrasive of Hollywood's top performers. These qualities are very much in evidence in The Ragman's Son but almost entirely absent from Life Could Be Verse. In the quarter century between the autobiography and the book of poems, Kirk survived a helicopter crash, suffered a stroke which left him having to relearn how to speak, and experienced the death of his youngest son, Eric, from a drug overdose. In the poem "Eric," Kirk writes -- Tell me, Eric, what did I do wrong?/What should I have done to make you strong?/Now I sit here and cry/Waiting to be with you when I die.
.
Other books by Kirk Douglas include My Stroke of Luck (2002), Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning (2007) and two novels: Dance with the Devil (1990) and The Gift (1992). He has also performed a one-man autobiographical stage show, Before I Forget (2009).



34 comments:

  1. I read this book purely for the novelty of it - a famous actor writing poetry? Who doesn't want to know what THAT sounds like? And let's be honest - I don't expect him to be a contender for Poet Laureate any time soon. But the poems are sweet and heartfelt, and each carries with it a snapshot of what has been a fantastically complex and interesting life. My only real complaint is that I wish the book had been longer - Douglas comes across as warm and funny, and I would have enjoyed hearing more stories from his 97 years Paperchoice.org Review . Recommended for Kirk Douglas fans or Hollywood fans.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your blog posts are more interesting and impressive. I think there are many people like and visit it regularly, including me.I actually appreciate your own position and I will be sure to come back here.
    brtaram

    ReplyDelete
  3. In the film-making process, the setting or environment in which the film occurs can drastically change, causing various risks to befall a production, some risks which may be familiar and others which may have never been dealt with before. 123movies.one

    ReplyDelete
  4. Greetings all. Let's join soon in the best and trusted ballot 2018 ^ _ ^ and do not miss too many bonuses in the tablet www.maxisbola.com
    Enjoy the benefits of playing on
    FIRST DEPOSIT BONUS 30%
    1 Min deposit: IDR 500,000
    2 Max bonus: IDR 2,000,000
    3 Bonus code: MSB30
    4 Perform a turnover of 10 times the total deposit plus bonus
    example depo 200 + 100 = 400x10 = 4,000 turn over to be achieved
    5 This special promo is new member and first deposit
    6 Results Series, betting on both sides, canceled or withdrawn are removed from the turnover calculation
    7 All bets outside SPORTBOOK are not counted in turn over
    8 Bonuses and winnings will be withdrawn if the turn over target is not reached as of the deposit date or there is an identified fraud in the ip address, account number, account name.
    9. Maxisbet reserves the right to cancel this promo anytime, whether for all players or individual players

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Presidents Executive SPA and Karaoke Purwokerto adalah cara terbaik untuk melepaskan diri dari STRESS! Stay awake ... Happy Relaxation and Enjoy With Us Lets Now North Purwokerto, Banyumas Regency, Central Java www.thepresidentspa.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is a great article thanks for sharing this informative information. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post. : best fishing gloves

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. thanks for sharing

    better way to buy groceries
    Migrocer

    ReplyDelete
  9. When you do not really know much about scm systems, your initial reaction might be to ignore the need to invest in such software. The same goes when you are having trouble with cargo and logistics management, but prefer finding temporary solutions.
    http://newsstoryarticles.altervista.org/major-benefits-associated-scm-systems/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Its like you learn my mind! You seem to understand a lot approximately this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with some % to force the message home a bit, however other than that, that is fantastic post. A fantastic read. I'll certainly be back. cheap seo

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am essentially satisfied along with your great work.You put truly extremely supportive data. Keep it up. Continue blogging. Hoping to perusing your next post
    seo services in singapore

    ReplyDelete
  12. growing old together until die so sweet like them agen togel terpercaya

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am really enjoying reading your well written articles. It looks like you spend a lot of effort and time on your blog.
    Facebookvideodownloader.org
    Videodownloaderfb.com

    ReplyDelete
  14. Great survey, I'm sure you're getting a great response. hdfilme.cc

    ReplyDelete
  15. a given article is very interesting and very useful for me, and pardon me permission to share articles here hopefully helpful and useful

    Dietplanpdf.com
    Ketosidedishes.com

    ReplyDelete
  16. My local Paddington, Sydney Library had no books or published material on the topics of Risk or Project Management in Film. Both of these areas extremely applicable and valid to the film-making process, one marvels why the lack of information. putlocker digital

    ReplyDelete
  17. AME Automotive is your local mechanic in Canning Vale, Perth.
    Car Service Canning Vale

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hire Java Developers India, USA, leading Java Development Company for business software and web application solutions.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Cellebre Technologies offers custom database solution being a database development company by providing database development services and consulting.
    Database Management and Consulting India, USA

    ReplyDelete
  20. Awesome information i found here. I really admire to see your quality article. I will look forward to read your informative articles.

    Algorithmic Trading

    ReplyDelete
  21. A few contend that fiction film has embraced, like never before, true to life feel. A few producers are improving on there film language.
    https://www.buyyoutubeviewsindia.in/youtube-marketing/

    ReplyDelete
  22. Wonderful blog! This is very informative site.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This movie is old and unique for us. This all time legendary movie with a lot of good rewards. Keep posting are going to be expecting your next blog. Now it's time to avail vacuum storage bags for more information.

    ReplyDelete