Exclusive Interview: Kirk Douglas on Success, Suicide, Family and Film

Kirk Douglas celebrated two important milestones this month: the publication of Life Could Be Verse, his 11th book, and his 98th birthday on Dec. 9. An Oscar and Kennedy Center honoree and a recipient of the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award, Douglas has starred in 73 movies and today lives with his wife Anne, 84, in Los Angeles and continues to act and write.

“I love her,” he says of Anne, “because she gave me stability in the crazy world in which I’ve made my living.”

Douglas, despite his fame and considerable wealth, has known more than his fair share of heartbreak and trouble. In 1996, he suffered a devastating stoke, which still makes speaking difficult for him. Worse, eight years after his stroke, his youngest son Eric Douglas overdosed, and then in 2010 the eldest of his four sons, Michael Douglas, was diagnosed with cancer, and his grandson Cameron was sent to prison. “You endure it,” he says, “It’s all a part of life.”

In Los Angeles, Douglas talked at length with PARADE’s contributing editor Dotson Rader about the movie business, love, suicide, and the real meaning of Christmas.

Why did you publish Life Could Be Verse?

“I wrote these poems at different times throughout my life and I wanted to see what all the poems together said about my life. It’s a small book, filled with pictures, but it probably tells you more about me than you want to know!”

Did you have a specific reader in mind in writing the book?

“I wrote it for my grandchildren, and as a love letter to my wife. We’ve been married for 60 years. Anne is an unusual girl. She has helped me so many times. The more I gotten to know her, the more I’ve thought about her.”

You’ve lived through a lot of good and bad times. When you had your stroke in 1996 you considered suicide.

“Humor saved me. A stroke, especially for an actor, is a terrible thing, because if you can’t speak, you can’t act. 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? Funny! And it made me stop. There are even jokes about it: What can an actor do who can’t talk? He waits for the silent pictures to come back!”

You didn’t wait. You’ve starred in four movies since your stroke.

“Yes. But there was a time when I couldn’t talk, or I made sounds that you couldn’t figure out. I still have problems with my speech. I work with speech therapists once a week, and I try to handle my vocal problems.”

“I am amazed by my son Michael’s strength, living through all he has gone through. I admire his handling of his problems. He took it all, everything, and he didn’t complain.”

Michael Douglas was treated for tongue cancer in 2010. That same year Michael’s eldest son, sometime actor Cameron Douglas, 35, was convicted of drug offenses and is incarcerated for a minimum of eight years.

“He’s working on a movie, his fifth picture since his cancer. Michael is a mensch. Do you know what a mensch is?”

“That’s right. Michael thinks about other people, and he has done lots to help others. That’s so important.”

Do you think that Michael and you are both strong because you married very good women? (Michael Douglas, 70, is married to Catherine Zeta Jones, 45.)

“Being married to the right woman in very important. Michael and Catherine have two very bright, fantastic kids, Dylan and Carys. (Dylan is 14, Carys is 11.) I’m sure that they are both going to be actors. Their mother, father and grandfather are actors, and Dylan considers himself an actor and takes the lead in his school plays.”

You’ve been in the movie business since 1946, when you made your first film. When you look at movies today, don’t you think they glamorize drugs, unsafe sex, violence in a way they wouldn’t have done 70 years ago?

“Movies have become more liberal. They deal with all kinds of problems. But movies are a form of entertainment. You don’t go to a movie to learn something, you go to be entertained. You want to get carried away to a different point, to a situation different from where you live. When you leave a movie theater, you want to have had a different experience.”

But films are more than mere entertainment. Aren’t they also moral instruction, good or bad?

“There is a responsibility for movies to think about what kids respond to. I admit, there are movies that don’t have the right effect on kids. I blame movies for so many kids smoking.”

Didn’t you smoke because of movies?

“When I first started acting in movies, I did not smoke. The first picture that I did [The Strange Love of Martha Ivers] the director said, ‘You must smoke in this scene.’ And I said, ‘I don’t smoke.’ He said, ‘Well, you will learn.’ So I started smoking. I smoked at least two packs a day [for years]. Then one day I remembered how my father stopped smoking. The doctor said to him, ‘If you keep smoking, you will die.’ So, what did he do? He put one cigarette in his breast pocket. When he had the desire to smoke, he took out that cigarette, looked at it, and said, ‘Who is stronger, you or me? I’m stronger.’ And put the cigarette back in his pocket. I did the same thing.”

When you reflect on your life, what is the most important lesson you learned?

“Help other people. Anne and I feel you have to help, even if you don’t have enough yourself. That’s what being a human being means. When I was in college [St. Lawrence University, New York] I noticed there were no black students. The first thing that I did when I graduated and made money is have them start four-year scholarships for minority students. In my will I ensure that that endowment continues.”

The Douglas Foundation, established in 1964 by Kirk and Anne Douglas, is one of the entertainment industry’s oldest and largest philanthropies. It supports education, medicine, and other causes, among them 405 public playgrounds.

Where did your commitment to help others come from?

“I was very poor as a boy. My mother and father were immigrants from Russia. We didn’t have enough to eat. Almost every week hobos would knock at the door. I was a little boy, and I was scared. But when they came to the door, my mother always had something to give them. I learned from that. When I became a millionaire, I [learned] success can be dangerous, because some people don’t know how to handle it. What success [should do] is make you feel for other people and make you generous in helping them.”

Isn’t that the message of Christmas and Hanukkah?

“They’re a time to think of others, not just yourself. They’re lovely holidays, when you can be glad that you’re alive and can give gifts to other people.”