Kirk Douglas Added to Oscars In Memoriam

American actor Kirk Douglas has been added in the “in memoriam” section of this year’s Academy Awards, which had been completed but was edited to include the screen icon who had died at the age of 103 on Wednesday.

Given Douglas’ stature in the industry, it’s unsurprising that the Academy has modified the “in memoriam” section to include the actor, as in the past the organization has been criticized for failing to include major filmmakers and performers in its departed list.

In 2019, the Oscars were criticized for not putting director Stanley Donen, Oscar-nominee Sondra Locke, and Oscar-nominee Carol Channing in the “in memoriam”.

The 92nd Academy Awards is scheduled to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, on February 9th.

It is worth mentioning that Douglas was a fixture in cinema for six decades. He was born Issur Danielovich on Dec. 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York.

Douglas was the only son of seven children born to illiterate Russian immigrants.

He hitch-hiked to St. Lawrence University in New York, after graduating from high school, where he became a wrestling champion.

Douglas also starred in theatrical productions and changed his name to Izzy Demsy after St. Lawrence enrolled in New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1941, during which he changed his name to Kirk Douglas.

He joined the Navy following two small Broadway roles. In 1946, Douglas made his film debut in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” costarring Barbara Stanwyck.

Douglas rose to stardom in 1916 and earned his first Oscar nomination for the 1949 movie “Champion”.

He was an actor known for his amazing acting skills and his range of roles that totaled over 90 movies in a career that stretched across seven decades and films, which included “Spartacus” and “The Vikings” that made him one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1950s and ’60s.

Douglas is also known for his other movies “Lonely Are the Brave,” “The Devil’s Disciple,” “Victory at Entebbe” and “Tough Guys,”.

He was also a producer, director, and author. He also played a major role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist— actors, directors, and writers who were shunned professionally because of links to the communist movement in the 1950s— which was something he found to be a source of pride, more than any film he made.

Douglas and his first wife, Diana Dill, married on November 2, 1943. They had two sons, actor Michael Douglas and producer Joel Douglas, before porcing in 1951.

Afterward, while shooting the “Act of Love” movie in Paris he met Anne Buydens, its publicist, and got married in 1954. They had two sons, Peter and Eric.

Douglas, who survived a 1991 helicopter crash that killed two people, tried to discourage his children from following him into acting, however, Michael became a major star and a successful producer, while Joel and Peter become producers and Eric who had also become an actor until his death in 2004 from a drug overdose.

A stroke in 1996 at the age of 80, left Douglas with slurred speech and damaged facial nerves, but two weeks later he was seen in high spirit as he attended the Academy Awards ceremony, during which he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

He also continued to take small acting roles through 2008 but said the stroke left him suicidal.

“Humor saved me,” Douglas told Parade magazine in 2014. “At first, I thought my life was at an end. But when I put the gun in my mouth, it hit a tooth. Ow! And that struck me funny. A toothache was stopping me from committing suicide?”

In one of his last public appearances, he seemed fragile and barely audible in a wheelchair as he helped daughter-in-law at the Oscar in January 2018.