| Looking back at the theatrical stage of Kirk Douglas' career | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 01:53 am EST 02/06/20 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 01:43 am EST 02/06/20 | |
| In reply to: re: RIP Kirk Douglas, age 103 (nm) - showtunetrivia 07:29 pm EST 02/05/20 | |
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| Douglas is best known as the movie star of ''Sparatacus'' and ''Paths of Glory''; the 3-time Oscar nominee of ''Champion,'' ''The Bad and the Beautiful'' and ''Lust for Life''; the man who helped break the Hollywood blacklist and hired Dalton Trumbo, and the proud father of Michael Douglas. But for the record, Douglas also loved theater, appearing 7 times on Broadway during the 1940s. Notably, he played an orderly in a 1942 revival of Anton Chekhov's ''The Three Sisters,'' which starred Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon and Katharine Cornell, who also produced it. Over two decades later, Douglas would return to Broadway in ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1963). He had bought the rights from its author, Ken Kesey, and had it turned into a play. He portrayed Randle P. McMurphy in a cast that included Ed Ames, William Daniels, Joan Tetzel and Gene Wilder. The show got mixed reviews, but played for five months. Douglas retained the movie rights, but unable to find a producer, gave them to his son, Michael, who would produce the 1975 Oscar-winning movie that starred Jack Nicholson as McMurphy. Though ''Cuckoo's Nest'' was Douglas' final foray on Broadway, in 1981, he and longtime friend, Burt Lancaster, did a new two-man comic drama called ''The Boys of Autumn'' in San Francisco. Written by Bernard Sabath, it imagined an elderly reunion between Huckleberry Finn (Lancaster) and Tom Sawyer (Douglas). Alas, the reception was lukewarm, and the two pretty much retired from the stage. However, Douglas took one more stab in March 2009, doing an autobiographical one-man show, ''Before I Forget,'' in Culver City. It was filmed and turned into a documentary. R.I.P. |
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