by Kirk Douglas
With my best wishes and thank you for all the inspiration—get well soon.
Billy Crystal
Steven Spielberg, whom I admire and love, had introduced me in such laudatory terms I wanted to cry. Here is an earlier exchange between us:
Dear Steven,
You deserve all the success you have had with your films. It gave you the power—you always had the talent—to make Schindler’s List. What a movie! A historical piece of film.
I am now in the process of writing my fifth book not a novel. Here I try to grapple with what it means to be a Jew. You, much younger than I, have wrestled successfully.
I only have four sons. I think I’ll adopt you, too.
With much affection,
Kirk
Dear Kirk,
I thought those twelve nominations gave me a boost through the roof, but your letter pushed me all the way up into the plumbing!
By the way, consider me adopted. I love making you proud.
Your friend,
Steven
It was hard to believe that only a few months before receiving my honorary Oscar, I had been in the depths of despair, feeling so sorry for myself I pulled out the gun I had saved from Gunfight at the O.K. Corral to kill myself. I kept thinking: What does an actor do who can’t talk? Wait for silent pictures to come back?
Instead, I took stock of what else life had in store for me. I had been lucky—even with my stroke. Burt had lost both speech and movement after his stroke. I was no longer young, and I didn’t know how long God’s reprieve would last, but I was ready for my next act, as long as I could share it with Anne.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Caring Is Sharing
KIRK:
I have great admiration for the way Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox (my costar in Greedy), and so many others in my profession have used their physical challenges to raise awareness and monies for research. Sometimes, we actors can even make a difference when our performances shed light on a problem, like my role as a victim of elder abuse in the television drama, Amos.
After I went onstage before millions of viewers all over the world at the Oscars, I became the “poster boy” for stroke victims. I received a great many letters from people who were struggling or had a friend or family member who was in despair.
I had been more fortunate than many who have similar brain attacks. I didn’t die, and only my speech was severely affected. I would still be able to play golf, and I could learn to speak again if I was diligent about my exercises. But in those early days, I couldn’t talk and I couldn’t stop drooling. One side of my mouth sagged, and I was a sorry sight. Thank God for Anne’s tough love, or I would have wallowed forever in self-pity.
I spoke at conventions of speech therapists; I raised money for stroke awareness; most important, I tried to answer the letters of everyone who wrote me to urge them not to give up. Eventually, I wrote a book called My Stroke of Luck, in which I described my suicidal depression and what I did to get over it. I included my personal six-point prescription, which I called an Operator’s Manual:
1. When things go bad, always remember it could be worse.
2. Never, never give up. Keep working on your speech and on your life.
3. Never lose your sense of humor. Laugh at yourself. Laugh with others.
4. Stem depression by thinking of, reaching out to, and helping others. Strive to be a Little Hero.
5. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
6. Pray. Not for God to cure you, but to help you help yourself.
ANNE:
Kirk was shocked—I wasn’t—at how people responded to his honesty and courage. After all, in America alone, approximately 700,000 people a year have strokes, and many of them are young. He was well aware that his celebrity status helped make his voice (impaired as it was) an important instrument of hope.
One of the most poignant letters he received was from the brilliant actress Julie Harris, printed with obvious difficulty on August 2, 2001, three months after her first stroke.
Dear Kirk,
I am thinking of you and hope you are doing well.
In May I suffered a slight stroke, which has left me with difficulty in speaking. I am now home in Chatham, MA, taking intensive speech therapy.
I am inspired by your recovery. I think youre [sic] a wonderful person, and a superb actor and writer.
I love you,
Julie Harris
Kirk’s immediate reply (the day after the letter came) was typical of his caring:
Dear Julie,
I was happy to hear from you, and very happy that you’re working with your speech therapist. Don’t give up! Sometimes, you will feel like you’re not making progress. That’s the time to work harder. It won’t be long before we talk together. My book, My Stroke of Luck, will be coming out at the end of the year. I will send you a copy. You might find it helpful.
There is a reason for everything in life, and you will find the reason.
Love,
Kirk Douglas
Lady Bird Johnson, our dear friend of so many years, also had a severe stroke. Her daughter, Luci, read her My Stroke of Luck, because, in addition to her impairments from the stroke, she had severe macular degeneration. I treasure the letter she sent on September 24, 2002:
Dear Anne and Kirk,
My Stroke of Luck contains so many elements. It is a celebration of life and love, an overcoming of fear and frailties, an insight into the human condition, and a gift of hope.
It buoyed me to have it read to me. Nearly five months after my stroke, I am still struggling to speak well enough to be understood. I inch along with twice daily sessions with my speech therapist (not to mention a team of other therapists), and I’m told I am making progress. But with family watching over me, I’m “out and about” going to dinner and the ranch on weekends. And after all these years, I finally have a plausible excuse to say no to things I don’t want to do.
Kirk, I think what you’ve written so masterfully will be a boon not only to stroke victims and their families, but caregivers as well. I salute you from the bottom of my heart.
So fondly,
Lady Bird Johnson
KIRK:
People in show business are often depicted as egotistical and hedonistic. No doubt, some elements of those characteristics creep in, especially for the few of us who—deservedly or not—are idolized by the public, not necessarily for our achievements but simply because we’re famous.
For some in our community, fame is the drug. For others, like Robert Downey Jr., the drug is a sickness called addiction. Because of our son Eric, we know too well the heartbreak of those who struggle and lose. So, I’m glad that Robert has achieved such soaring personal and professional success.
I was very worried about him when he was sentenced to serve time in a California correctional facility. I didn’t really know him, but I was familiar with the kind of demons that tormented him. I wanted him to know I cared. This is what I wrote on December 13, 1999:
Dear Robert,
Please forgive my Chutzpah in writing this letter. I admire you as an actor. You have great talent. A talent such as yours is given to you by God. You have the responsibility of preserving that talent.
You cannot use that talent where you are now. It may sound pretentious, but I believe sincerely that when you have such a talent, you have an obligation to other people.
I pray that God will give you the strength to deal with your problems so that we may enjoy your talent in the future.
Sincerely,
Kirk Douglas
P.S. I must admit that I have one son that I have not been very successful with my advice. But maybe I will be more successful with you.
He sent back a postcard in bright red ink. It was Christmas Eve:
KD,
I’m no schmuck.
When advice comes from a good man, I take it!
Hey! What a privilege to be in your thoughts.
&nbs
p; —Downey
ANNE:
I believe that words and personal involvement are wonderful, but money is even better. We formed the Douglas Foundation in 1964, after films like Spartacus and Seven Days in May replenished our finances.
Lew Wasserman advised me that when it comes to philanthropy, it is better to find a few causes you can fund generously rather than diluting your impact with small donations to everything. That advice resonated with me, but we couldn’t really implement it on the scale I envisioned without making a few sacrifices.
KIRK:
Anne is referring, of course, to the sale of major pieces from our art collection at Christie’s in May of 1990. We had been collecting seriously since our marriage in 1954, and the collection had appreciated substantially in the art boom of the century’s final two decades. The only art piece I owned when we married was a large poster by Toulouse-Lautrec of Aristide Bruant, the Parisian nightclub entertainer. He is wearing a black cape with a crimson scarf and a large black hat worn at a rakish angle. The lithograph cost $500, a fortune at the time, and I framed it myself with the help of a friend. We kept that piece out of the sale, as well as a few lovely paintings Anne brought with her from Paris.
In all, we sent fifty-two pieces to the auction, which was held in New York over several days—the most valuable paintings and sculpture on the first, the lesser pieces later on.
When Christie’s came to remove the art, Anne started crying uncontrollably. Each piece was a memory: Chagall’s Night Rider from the artist’s Mexican period and a Vlaminck painting of flowers were two pieces she and Fran Stark had borrowed for the party I gave her in 1954. There were other Chagalls we acquired from the master himself and works by Braque, Miró, Vuillard, Balthus, and even an early portrait by the great modernist Piet Mondrian.
I was no help. I took off for the golf course to play eighteen holes to avoid the disturbing scene.
ANNE:
The sale was Kirk’s idea, and I had resisted it at first. He explained that we wouldn’t give up collecting. We would just acquire emerging contemporary artists who were destined to be great. Meanwhile, we would use most of the proceeds from the sale to finance the big dreams I was starting to have for the foundation.
Kirk told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times: “When you reach a certain standard of living you should help those who are less fortunate.”
KIRK:
I learned that lesson from my mother, Bryna. When I was a child, I was puzzled that she would never turn away the hobos who came to our door. She always found a little morsel of food for them. I didn’t understand. I knew how little we had, and how often my stomach would growl in protest. Ma patiently explained: “Even a beggar must give to a person who has less.” She maintained a little blue box, a puschka, into which she dropped a few coins for charity whenever she could.
ANNE:
One of the first things I wanted to do with the enhanced funds of the Douglas Foundation was help the homeless women on skid row. We went to the Los Angeles Mission, and I started looking around the facility. There were just a few cots set up for women, with only a bedsheet to insure their privacy and safety.
I had seen so much homelessness and misery during the war, and I knew how easy it was for people to give up on themselves, especially women.
For twenty-five years, the women who go through the twelve-month rehabilitation program at the Anne Douglas Center have been part of my extended family. I am proud of their successes and I am there for them if they slip.
Kirk has his name on many buildings. This is the only one I wanted my name on. I brought my son Eric to the Anne Douglas Center on a number of occasions to speak with the women and to see what we do there. I hoped he might want to run it, but God had other plans for my troubled boy.
KIRK:
We are still a two-newspaper household. I read the New York Times and Anne reads the Los Angeles Times. She, therefore, is much better informed than I about what is happening in the Greater Los Angeles area.
One day in 1997, she came into my den with an all too familiar look of determination. “Read this,” she said. “I need to do something about it.”
It was a story about public schools in the huge Los Angeles School District. So many of their playgrounds were too unsafe for the kids to use. “In a country like this, in a city like Los Angeles!” she railed. “How can this be?”
By the next day, she had set up a meeting with Mayor Richard Riordan at City Hall; she brought two of her friends with charitable foundations with her. The Anne and Kirk Douglas Playground Award program was up and running with several million dollars in funding by the end of the week. That’s my Anne!
Whenever I asked what I could do, she would say, “Get a job. We need the money.”
Every Wednesday for eleven years, Anne would shake me awake and say, “Get ready. We’ll be late for school.”
We attended every dedication of every new playground. I had more fun than the kids. Actors never grow up. My big finale—after the speeches, the ribbon cutting, and the adorable performances by the kids—was going down the slide. I took my last trip with my new bionic knees when I was a mere ninety-one.
ANNE:
People don’t always realize the importance of play to a child. Aside from the physical benefits in an age of childhood obesity, it is the one place where children of all backgrounds and ethnicities can socialize and learn to respect one another.
We funded several playgrounds in Israel for that very reason, praying that Arab and Jewish kids would see how alike they were on a soccer field or on a swing. We had an opportunity to visit them in 2000.
KIRK:
Kirk shows the kids how to ride a slide at a school playground dedication
Our next big investment was the Alzheimer’s unit at the Motion Picture Country Home, which I named Harry’s Haven for my father. He didn’t have Alzheimer’s but it sounded like the name of a saloon. Pa would have liked that.
I wanted to provide a place that was inviting not only to the patients, but to their loved ones. Our good friend Roddy McDowall built a garden for the families to enjoy. Now it is being enlarged into an impressive new building that will bear the name Kirk Douglas Care Pavilion.
I had been contributing to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, now the Motion Picture and Television Fund, since my early days in movies. It meets the medical and retirement needs of people in our entertainment industry, regardless of ability to pay. If Anne didn’t take such good care of me, I would go live there myself! It’s beautiful.
Alzheimer’s is such a heartbreak. We watched as Ronnie Reagan slipped farther into the past. He didn’t remember being the Leader of the Free World. But it was Nancy who bore the pain on a daily basis.
Charlton Heston announced his diagnosis in 2002. He was a lot like John Wayne politically, but I liked him although I didn’t like his stance on guns. Chuck presided over the National Rifle Association conventions. At the end of each, he would pick up a rifle and yell “from my cold dead hands.” Holy Moses!
I called Chuck when I heard the news. He sent me this lovely letter, dated September 10, 2002, which showed true courage in the face of an enemy that couldn’t be vanquished with a gun.
Dear Kirk:
I want you to know I have your message expressing your concern about the announcement I made recently about my health: you’ve warmed my heart. I accept your prayers gratefully. I, too, respect our differences but the times we’ve spent together transcend them. I’ll never forget them.
I’m not sure I entirely deserve such an outpouring of good wishes from so many people, but I’m taking them all to heart.
Of all the messages I’ve received, the following from a longtime friend has been the funniest. I thought you might enjoy it. What he wrote was, “Just my luck! The one big-shot that ever remembered my name tells me he may forget it. I find that unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, please accept my thanks for your warm support and goodwill. As William Shakespe
are said, “Fear not, all will yet be well.”
As ever,
Chuck
ANNE:
Never in my wildest dreams as a child could I have imagined the trajectory of my life. Kirk and I have been so blessed, and it has been our privilege to share our good fortune where we care the most. Kirk is forever grateful to St. Lawrence University, and he has funded full scholarships for minority students. There were no African American students in his day, so he leans heavily in favor of those applicants. We support the performing and visual arts because they are vital to a civilized society. In addition to groundbreaking plays, our Kirk Douglas Theatre has workshops and gives performances for children.
Because we are so hands-on with our giving, we don’t give blanket funds to a charity or nonprofit. We ask for a list of the most urgent needs and then usually underwrite the most expensive. Recently, we gave Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles a multimillion dollar surgical robot that is revolutionary in correcting urological problems quickly and with shortened recovery time. They named it Spartacus.
I like the answer Kirk gave when asked why we are so passionate about our philanthropic work: “What else do you do with your money? You give it away to people who need it. You help them. It feels so good I think it’s selfish.”
