Quotes by Kirk Douglas

About Kirk Douglas:

Kirk Douglas is an American actor, producer, director, and author. After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s and 1960s, known for doing serious dramas, including westerns and war movies. During a sixty-year acting career, he has appeared in over 90 movies, and in 1960 was responsible for helping to end the Hollywood blacklist.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back?

Kirk Douglas

When you reach 95, after you get over your surprise, you start looking back.

Kirk Douglas

You know, sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say - you're bright! They're actually surprised I might be bright.

Kirk Douglas

Sometimes, the thing that ties you down sets you free.

Kirk Douglas

Sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say, 'You're bright!' They're actually surprised I might be bright.

Kirk Douglas

I'm an actor; I have made my living by acting, and I almost think I owe it to the public to express my feelings and not as a character on a screen but as myself.

Kirk Douglas

Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be; I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice.

Kirk Douglas

Life is like a B-picture script.

Kirk Douglas

My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found som...

Kirk Douglas

When you become a star, you don't change - everyone else does.

Kirk Douglas

I was living in a terrible time when people were being accused of being communists, and they attacked the movie industry, especially the writers. People couldn't work if they were on the blacklist. The studios banned them. It was the most onerous per...

Kirk Douglas

God bless Dad, he came to every one of my shows. I was bad, and I had horrible stage fright. My dad was so relieved - he'd say, 'You were terrible; this kid is not going to be an actor.' Finally, I did a play and he said, 'Son - you were really good....

Kirk Douglas

People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed.

Kirk Douglas

My first job was on Broadway. Then I went into the Navy. When I came out of the Navy, I went back to Broadway and a friend of mine, Lauren Bacall, was in Hollywood filming with Humphrey Bogart. She told one of her producers I was great in my play, an...

Kirk Douglas

Being second generation in Hollywood is complicated: Success is expected, and yet the track record of the second generation is not great. Only a small group of us, like Jane Fonda, have succeeded.

Kirk Douglas

My four sons all knew I was a Jew, but they were allowed to be whatever they wanted to be. The only thing important to me was that they be good people who help other people, because all religion should try to make you a better person and a more carin...

Kirk Douglas

Cancer does give you a new rejuvenation. I know what it's like to be down. I lost a couple of good friends - Larry Hagman and Nick Ashford - who had the same type of cancer that I did, and that makes you think.

Kirk Douglas

I was not a very good Jew. I never practised what Judaism tells you to do, to teach your kids all about Judaism.

Kirk Douglas

I have been an actor for most of my life. When I started out, I didn't think about anything except what was good for me. Like many movie stars, I became all wrapped up in myself.

Kirk Douglas

It's tough to make a movie about movies... We're all too close to it. But 'The Bad and the Beautiful' was very good.

Kirk Douglas

Virtue is not photogenic, so I liked playing bad guys. But, whenever I played a bad guy, I tried to find something good in him, and that kept my contact with the audience.

Kirk Douglas

Author Bio

  • NameKirk Douglas
  • Descriptionstage and film actor from the United States
  • AliasesIssur Danielovitch
  • BornDecember 9, 1916
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionActor; Film Producer; Television Actor; Film Actor; Film Director
  • AwardsNational Medal Of Arts; Presidential Medal Of Freedom; Legion Of Honour