KIRK DOUGLAS

Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter, and a Lifetime in Hollywood is the story of film legend and charismatic centenarian Kirk Douglas and his wife of sixty-two years, Anne Buydens. The lessons of a life well-lived and untold stories of their enduring love unfold through the couple's own candid commentary and a treasure trove of priceless letters from their personal archives. Painstakingly maintained by Anne over the course of more than six decades and never before made public, the correspondence includes candid details of their (often turbulent) courtship and marriage, set against the backdrop of Kirk's screen triumphs in films ranging from Lust For Life to Paths of Glory and Spartacus. Through the letters themselves and Kirk and Anne's words, never-before-told stories emerge about the legendary stars they knew so well: Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Gregory Peck, Cole Porter, John Wayne, Tony Curtis, and son Michael Douglas; fascinating first-hand accounts of Hollywood film sets and dinner parties; exotic tales of travel to over forty countries as goodwill ambassadors. There are personal stories of presidents and first ladies (JFK and Jackie, LBJ and Lady Bird, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton and, "Ronnie" and Nancy Reagan), and powerful memories of both joy and sadness (Kirk's near-fatal helicopter crash, his astonishing recovery from a debilitating stroke, the tragic death of their youngest son). Complemented by dozens of previously unpublished photos, Kirk and Anne candidly details the adventurous, oftentimes comic, and poignant reality behind the glamour of a Hollywood life, as only a couple of sixty-two years (and counting) could tell it.

Hollywood can be a tough town. But it's been awfully good to Danny Dennison. Although the movies he directs are more hot commerce than great art, he's wealthy and successful. But Danny Dennison has been living a lie. His true identity is buried half way around the world in the ruins of a Nazi concentration camp. Danny believes his secret to be safe - until he meets Luba, a young, sensuous call girl, whose mesmerising sexuality begins to shatter his well-guarded facade.

From Kirk Douglas, Hollywood royalty and bestselling author of The Ragman’s Son and My Stroke of Luck, comes the candid story of the making of Spartacus, the blockbuster film that broke the blacklistOne of the world’s most iconic movie stars, Kirk Douglas has distinguished himself as a producer, philanthropist, and author of ten works of fiction and memoir. Now, more than fifty years after the release of his enduring epic Spartacus, Douglas reveals the riveting drama behind the making of the legendary gladiator film. Douglas began producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when Hollywood’s moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist sympathies. In a risky move, Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted screenwriter, to write Spartacus. Trumbo was one of the “Unfriendly Ten,” men who had gone to prison rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about their political affiliations. Douglas’s source material was already a hot property, as the novel Spartacus was written by Howard Fast while he was in jail for defying HUAC. With the financial future of his young family at stake, Douglas plunged into a tumultuous production both on- and off-screen. As both producer and star of the film, he faced explosive moments with young director Stanley Kubrick, struggles with a leading lady, and negotiations with giant personalities, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, and Lew Wasserman. Writing from his heart and from his own meticulously researched archives, Kirk Douglas, at ninety-five, looks back at his audacious decisions. He made the most expensive film of its era—but more importantly, his moral courage in giving public credit to Trumbo effectively ended the notorious Hollywood blacklist. A master storyteller, Douglas paints a vivid and often humorous portrait in I Am Spartacus! The book is enhanced by newly discovered period photography of the stars and filmmakers both on and off the set.

A new edition of the fascinating autobiography of one of Hollywood's most enduring legends

He was the son of an illiterate immigrant Russian-Jewish ragpicker and junkman. Raised in poverty, longing for his father's approval, Issur Danielovitch went on to become a legendary Hollywood star--Kirk Douglas. Here, in his own words, is the story of his life: his acting triumphs in Sparticus, Lust for Life, The Vikings, Paths of Glory, and Champions (to name a few); his fabled love affairs (among them, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Pier Angeli); his long, happy marriage to Anne Buydens and tales of his four sons who sometimes do outrageous imitations of their famous father--all at once In fascinating insider's detail, Kirk Douglas recalls more than forty years of Hollywood, from breaking the blacklist to his epic confrontations with studio bosses. With a cast of characters that includes scores of renowned show business personalities, The Ragman's Son is the passionate, vivid, lusty life of Kirk Douglas: man, actor, lover, husband, father--and enduring star.

Relaxing at home one sunny afternoon in 1995, Kirk Douglas suddenly felt a strange sensation in his right cheek. When he tried to describe what was happening, all that came out was gibberish. The cinema icon and movie legend was having a stroke. In this heartfelt and inspiring account, Kirk Douglas describes in powerful detail the helplessness and fear he felt following the attack, the depression that took him to the brink of suicide, and the love and support that pulled him through. Poignant and humorous, this is the deeply moving tale of a remarkable man whose gentle dignity and courage can be an inspiration to us all.

The Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author shares his moving story of survival after a debilitating stroke in 1995, which forever changed his life and taught him valuable lessons, and provides touching anecdotes from such famous figures as Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Jack Lemmon, Michael J. Fox, and others who have triumphed over adversity. Reprint.

With the simple power and astonishing candor that made his 1988 autobiography, "The Ragman's Son, " a number one international bestseller, Kirk Douglas now shares his quest for spirituality and Jewish identity -- and his heroic fight to overcome crippling injuries and a devastating stroke. On February 13, 1991, at the age of seventy-four, Kirk Douglas, star of such major motion-picture classics as "Champion, Spartacus, " and "Paths of Glory, " was in a helicopter crash, in which two people died and he himself sustained severe back injuries. As he lay in the hospital recovering, he kept wondering: Why had two younger men died while he, who had already lived his life fully, survived? The question drove this son of a Russian-Jewish ragman to a search for his roots and on a long journey of self-discovery -- a quest not only for the meaning of life and his own relationship with God, but for his own identity as a Jew. Through the study of the Bible, Kirk Douglas found a new spirituality and purpose. His newfound faith deeply enriched his relationship with his own children and taught him -- a man who had always been famously demanding and impatient -- to listen to others and, above all, to hear his own inner voice. Told with warmth, wit, much humor, and deep passion, "Climbing the Mountain" is inspirational in the very best sense of the word.

Revised to tie in with the paperback of 'Climbing the Mountain'.

Patricia Dennison's life is a chain of melodramatic events on the disastrous scale of the Titanic. Terrorists have executed her father on a passenger plane. She has inherited a multibillion-dollar empire that she doesn't want, & whose directors are plotting against her. The philanthropic doctor to whom she is engaged turns out to be gay. So she falls instead for a Portuguese bullfighter (who has just killed the husband of his last unfaithful lover). And so, with grandiose implausibility, the successive episodes crash one upon the next