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Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, Russian: И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962). He is No.17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a... MORE

Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, Russian: И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962). He is No.17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community." Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a businessman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel, Belarus. His father's brother, who emigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted in the United States. In addition to their surname, his parents also changed their given names to Harry and Bertha. Douglas grew up as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas when entering the Navy during World War II. Coming from a poor LESS