by Kirk Douglas
When I was in Washington to meet with the authors of Seven Days in May, I went to Vice President Johnson’s home for a buffet lunch. As I was standing with my empty plate, President Kennedy got in line behind me.
“Are you going to make a film of Seven Days in May?” he asked.
The Pentagon had already weighed in with their disapproval of the book and any plans for a movie. “Not if you don’t want me to,” I answered. I hadn’t yet finalized my deal for the rights.
The president spent the next twenty minutes explaining to me with great enthusiasm just why I had to do it. I’m glad I listened to him.
We filmed most of Seven Days in May in California: in the studio, in Lake Arrowhead and in San Diego; we did have to go to Washington briefly to get a shot in front of the White House, and one of me going in and out of the Pentagon. I called JFK. He went to Hyannis Port for a couple of days so I could film without interference from the Secret Service. We then “stole” the Pentagon footage by concealing a camera that caught me walking up the stairs in my colonel’s uniform, exchanging salutes with a lower-ranking officer, going inside, and walking out again. It seems no one can tell the difference between a movie colonel and a real one!
As summer progressed in 1963, Ethel and Bobby added still another baby to their brood. Anne and I received this note from Ethel, who was at the Compound in Hyannis Port. She had the best sense of humor, and I have many examples of our witty exchanges.
Dear Anne and Kirk,
Such a happy thank you for your wonderful telegram. It was great of you to think of us. Christopher is adjusting rapidly to his family’s hectic life and all of the other children adore him, especially Kerry, who is just the right age to enjoy a baby brother.
Anne was magnificent in the PT 109 TV show. We couldn’t see the guy who was with her—Eunice kept running up to the screen and kissing him.
Xxx & ooo’s, Ethel
ANNE:
President Kennedy suggested that Kirk visit foreign countries to talk with world leaders and their people about America. He understood that movie stars had fame and fans all over the world. My Spartacus could win new friends for the United States even in communist countries and dictatorships. Kirk wanted me to join him on these missions, because I had fluency in four languages; I also spoke passable Spanish after all our trips to Mexico. He also relied on my knowledge of protocol, honed by my work at the Cannes Film Festival.
We started in Colombia in 1962 and on another occasion we went to Berlin. That was interesting to me to be in a city, now divided, I had known so well from staying with my mother. We spent time in both parts of the city. All was optimism and hope in West Berlin but things were different on the other side of Checkpoint Charlie. We went to East Berlin because all of the great cultural institutions were on that side of the wall—the museums, the Philharmonic, the theaters.
We were given a tour of two enormous hotels built by Canadians. They were open for business, but we saw no guests. In the cavernous presidential suite with bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, and office space, there was a small sparsely furnished room—just two plain chairs and a table. I asked our genial government guide, “What is this room for?”
“This is the room where you sit and think about how you pay for the hotel bill,” he quipped. I thought that, more likely, it was used to eavesdrop on influential foreigners and record their conversations.
KIRK:
Under President Johnson, I formalized with the State Department’s USIA (United States Information Agency) my position as a goodwill ambassador. I asked for two things in return: that Anne be considered an equal partner and that I be allowed to pay for everything myself. I didn’t think it right to use taxpayer money. Together, we visited more than forty countries over the next decades, under both Democratic and Republican presidents. President Carter awarded me the Medal of Freedom and Anne received the Director’s Award from the State Department for increasing international understanding. I would attend briefings in Washington before each trip, and submit written reports on my return.
ANNE:
No matter how successful Kirk was as a film actor and producer, no matter how at home he was in the White House and embassies abroad, he still felt a failure because he hadn’t conquered Broadway. It was an itch that needed to be scratched.
Students at a Japanese university attend Kirk’s lecture on America
When he read Ken Kesey’s debut novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he saw its dramatic possibilities and acquired the rights. Dale Wasserman—who wrote the first draft screenplay of The Vikings—wrote the stage adaptation. A few years later, Dale had a major hit with Man of La Mancha.
With Seven Days in May in postproduction, Kirk felt free to go to New York where he assembled a first-rate cast for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Gene Wilder, Ed Ames, William Daniels, and Joan Tetzel. After brilliant out-of-town reviews, opening night was set for November 13, 1963, on Broadway.
As usual, I was at home in Beverly Hills, taking care of business and the children. I sent this letter to Kirk at the Hampshire House in Manhattan.
Wednesday, October 16, 11 p.m.
Mon Amour,
I am a little afraid to write this letter because “sloppy as you are,” you are likely going to leave this valuable compromising document lying around for anybody to read!
I hope you are as nervous as I am as the days come closer for the opening. They say it is a good sign to be nervous—well if it is to judge by me—it will be a smash—I am a wreck! I feel so for you but I have to remind myself that it is your guts and not mine that you use to get out there in front of that cruel world.
I am so proud of you. I cannot tell you enough. I know and understand what it means for you to go back to Broadway and give it another try. Darling, you can do no wrong with your decision—regardless of the outcome. I love you very deeply and I love our children. I am grateful for the wonderful lives that we are having thanks to your talent. We must realize that we really have everything—we don’t need anything more—everything “more” is an extra!
Now if I were you, I would put this letter away somewhere safe—and each time I am nasty to you—shove it under my nose!!
[Signed with a heart] Stolz
I flew to New York a few days before opening night. Kirk scribbled this note and sent it over to me at the Hampshire House a couple of hours before the curtain went up.
My darling—
No matter what happens tonight I love you. And please know how much I appreciate your patience at my unreasonable attitude.—Boy if I were you I certainly wouldn’t want to be married to me—But Thank God you’re you and thank God I’ve got you.
Tonight I “walk a picket fence for you”! I’m showing off for you and if I fall down, I’ll know you still love me. But I am going to try to be a success for you and Peter and Eric. For you especially because I love you—for the kids so that when they grow up they’ll know that their old man had guts and he “tried—goddamit, I tried.”
Anne and Kirk, 1979
Tonight, have fun, I’ll be over my nerves and I’ll be giving a show for you—as to the rest—Fug ’em all!—
I love you—
K
KIRK:
Well, after the glowing reviews in Boston, what a rude shock. The New York critics were brutal. They missed the point of the whole play and even accused us of making fun of mental patients. Then, just nine days later, the whole country was a madhouse.
I was in a cab heading for the theater on Friday afternoon, November 22. Suddenly the driver swerved to the curb. With tears in his eyes, he told me the news that had just come over the radio. President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after being shot in Dallas. Lyndon Johnson would be sworn in on Air Force One as our new president. We went through the motions of the performance as if this were a normal night, but it felt like all the air had gone out of the world.
Everyone of a certain age can tell you exactly where they were and what t
hey were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Years later, the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko told me Russians were crying in the street.
ANNE:
I was flying back to Los Angeles, and there was no announcement on the plane. The nanny and the kids were at the airport to meet me. She broke the news: “President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. He is dead.”
I was numb. I called Lenny Gershe as soon as I got in the house. He said, “I’ll be there in half an hour. We are going out to be with Pat.”
We arrived to find the house surrounded by Secret Service. Pat and Peter had separated by this time, so we stayed with her until she was escorted to the airport. I felt horrible to think of her all alone on that plane, accompanied only by a few press people who were covering the tragedy.
KIRK:
I kept the show running for five months. It was heavily in the red. I tried to buy some more time by cutting salaries, but the cast wouldn’t hear of it. I posted the closing notice and our final performance was January 25, 1964. Ironically, that was also the day of our first sneak preview of Seven Days in May. I stopped by the theater as the lights came up. When the audience saw me, they gave me a standing ovation. I felt like God was telling me it was okay to just be a movie star.
The day before, I had received the letter Tony Curtis wrote on January 20. He was expecting to see me when he got to New York the following week. By then, I was back in L.A.
Dear Kirk:
A little time has passed now and you have kind of settled into the play. I hope you’re well physically and emotionally. I think you have done a terrific job fighting with those pricks in New York—I am, of course, referring to the critics.
I had a gag planned to send you the day after your opening in New York, but when I heard of the reviews, I didn’t think the joke would work properly, so I decided against it. I am not going to tell you in a letter what it was, but will tell you when I see you in New York.
I’ve been very busy. I’m just finishing Sex and the Single Girl, which I did with Natalie Wood, and getting ready to do a picture at Fox the middle of March.…
We haven’t seen Anne, but every now and then I hear she’s in town or on her way to New York. We’ve been rather lax in getting in touch with her, but we really haven’t done anything, Kirk. Christina is pregnant.… We haven’t been out at all and haven’t missed anybody, with the exception of you and one or two others.
I won’t bore you with a long letter—just wanted to let you know we’ll see you in a week or so in New York. Christina joins me in our affection to you.
Tony
The Great White Way and I remained disappointed lovers. I only performed onstage twice more: a six-week run in San Francisco with Burt Lancaster in The Boys of Autumn, a two-hander about the later years of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer (it flopped on Broadway with a different cast), and my one-man show, Before I Forget, which I performed on two weekends in 2008, when I was only ninety-two at the Culver City theater that bears my name—not because of my fame, but because Anne and I gave the Center Theatre Group of the Music Center several million dollars to turn the defunct Art Deco Theatre near the old MGM studio into a modern performing space.
As for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I am happy I lived to see tastes change. My son Michael turned it into a hit film with my blessing in 1975, after I struggled for more than ten years to pull a production together. In 2001, it was a big hit on Broadway at last, winning the Tony for Best Play Revival. Gary Sinise played my role. I sent him this note of congratulations:
Dear Gary,
I’m very happy for you and your “crew” for getting the Tony, you deserve it! How lucky for you that you did not see my performance years ago. Jack Nicholson didn’t see it either, and you both won awards!
All my best,
Kirk
ANNE:
So Kirk came home and made more pictures, sandwiched between a few multicountry trips on several continents for the USIA. We met kings and queens in Greece and Thailand. We met dictators in Eastern Europe, like Romanian President Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife, Elena, (who were executed by firing squad after a revolution), and Marshal Tito, the president of Yugoslavia, who adored movie stars and entertained us at the opulent summer residence on Brijuni Island.
Just as President Kennedy had predicted, as a movie star, Kirk was a big hit everywhere we went. He was a perfect ambassador to explain American values and attitudes. I was as proud of him as I was of my adopted country.
KIRK:
This reminds me of an experience I had in Yugoslavia. I found myself in the same elevator as the British Ambassador, who was amazed that Anne and I had been personal guests of President Tito.
“Tell me your secret,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to present my credentials to him for nearly six months.”
“How many films have you made, Mr. Ambassador?” I replied.
In 1983, I went to Pakistan without Anne to visit the overflowing Afghan refugee camps. Afghanistan had been invaded by Russia, and we were very concerned about its displaced people. My visit got tremendous press coverage in Pakistan and elsewhere. We made a documentary that played all over the world and I had cordial meetings with President Zia. Back in the United States, I wrote impassioned op-ed pieces and held a press conference, never dreaming that we ourselves would get bogged down in a seemingly hopeless war in Afghanistan within another couple of decades.
Here’s a letter I received from the deputy director of the USIA about my activities, dated February 18, 1983.
Dear Kirk:
You already know from the tremendous response in this country and abroad that your visit to the Afghan refugees and your informed comments on their situation and on Soviet activities in Afghanistan had a remarkable effect on international opinion.
A recent telegram from our post in Moscow notes that Sovetskaya Rossiya carried a story February 6 on your visit and your Washington press conference. The article is complimentary to you as an artist, but criticizes you for “roving the world at the behest of the State Department and USIA,” so that “where there is a crisis, there is also a star.”
According to Sovetskaya Rossiya, the Afghan refugees “left their homeland of their own free will because of their blind hatred of the people’s revolution,” and you have taken “these bandit scum” under your wing.
The story concludes that you do not “see that those who manipulate (your) popularity and unscrupulous political goals do not want peace and ‘mutual understanding.’”
The notice that the Soviet press has given to your activities on behalf of Afghanistan is the best evidence yet of your great effectiveness in the cause of Afghanistan and of freedom.
With gratitude and best regards.
Sincerely,
Gilbert A. Robinson Deputy Director
Pakistani newspaper coverage of Kirk’s visit to an Afghan refugee camp
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friends in High Places
KIRK:
I admired Lyndon Johnson for his leadership in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. I don’t think anyone but LBJ, with his deep knowledge of how Washington worked, could have conducted the nation’s business so ably at that time.
Both Vice President Johnson and the political consultant Jack Valenti were in the motorcade on November 22, 1963. The lives of these two Texans changed forever the moment President Kennedy died. In the historic photo of the swearing-in on Air Force One, Jack’s stunned face is visible on the far left. LBJ brought him along to Washington to be his special assistant and made him live in the White House for the first several months. Jack spent so much time in the Oval Office that he fell in love with the president’s personal secretary, Mary Margaret.
In 1966, Lew Wasserman told Lyndon he was co-opting Jack to run the newly formed Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a lobby group for the top studios. Even the president couldn’t say no to Lew, the most powerful Democratic fund-raiser on the west
coast. Jack still headquartered in Washington, but he and Mary Margaret spent a lot of time in Hollywood. For more than forty-five years, he was my closest friend.
ANNE:
When Kirk went to Washington for USIA meetings, Jack would take him to the West Wing to visit with the president. I, however, became close to the Johnsons through our mutual friend, Mollie Parnis. They adored her. The president for me was like a big teddy bear, slightly unkempt, radiating energy. He was a little rough around the edges but everybody we met on our trips abroad really liked him. He was very kind and he adored his daughters.
Arthur Krim and his wife, Mathilde, owned a getaway spread near the LBJ ranch in Stonewall, Texas. They would drive over when we house-guested with the Johnsons and sometimes Mollie would join us from New York. Succeeding the glamorous Jackie Kennedy was not easy for Lady Bird, and I admired her tremendously. I think she was relieved when Lyndon announced he wouldn’t run for reelection in 1968, especially with anti-war protesters marching in the streets to chants of “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Of course, we all expected Robert F. Kennedy to succeed him.
KIRK:
Over the decades, I have corresponded with all of our presidents from JFK to Barack Obama. Some embraced Anne and me as friends. I often expressed my opinions as a private and concerned citizen. Here’s what I wrote to Lyndon Johnson in the early years of his presidency:
June 16, 1964
