Kirk Douglas has accomplished a lot in his life. His hardscrabble youth gave way to a career in Hollywood, where he starred in close to 100 pictures, including the 1960 spear-and-sandal epic Spartacus. He is one of the last of film's golden age, nominated for three Best Actor Oscars (Champion, Lust for Life, and The Bad and the Beautiful) and the father of two-time Oscar-winner Michael Douglas. But when we sat down with him at his Beverly Hills home recently, he told us his most enduring achievement didn't occur on the big screen—it was hiring a known communist as the screenwriter for Spartacus, thereby breaking the fabled Hollywood blacklist.
"I think I did it because I was young enough," said Douglas, 95. "If I had been older I would have been more conservative—well, let someone else do it. Of course, I was considered a brash young man."
He was referring to events that took place more than 50 years ago, when—according to his account—he hired and credited Spartacus's communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. It was chancy. Artists with communist ties were considered a liability—if not downright verboten—in Hollywood. Douglas has recounted these events in a new book, I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist, that includes a foreword by George Clooney.
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