text: Kirk Douglas (born December 9, 1916) in Amsterdam, NY. is an American actor and film producer known for voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as "sons of bitches". He is also father to Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas.\n\nEarly life:\nDouglas was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky in Amsterdam, New York to Herschel Danielovitch and Bryna Sanglel, poor Belarusian Jewish parents (who came from Homel, also known as Gomel). He was on the wrestling team at St. Lawrence University. To help make his way through college, he thought getting an acting scholarship might work. His talents got him noticed at the acclaimed American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where he soon received a scholarship, alongside classmate Betty Joan Perske (better, and soon to be, known as Lauren Bacall). He then served in the U.S. Navy from entry of the US intoWorld War II in 1941 until it ended in 1945. After the war he returned to New York City and started doing radio theater and commercials, while trying to break in on Broadway.\n\nDouglas was helped by actress Lauren Bacall in obtaining his first screen role in the Hal B. Wallis movie, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 1946, starring Barbara Stanwyck. Hal B. Wallis was on his way to New York to look for new talent when Bacall suggested he look up her old drama school classmate, who was working in an off-Broadway play at the time.\n\nCareer:\nKirk Douglas received three Academy Award nominations for his work in Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life (as Vincent Van Gogh). Douglas did not win any competitive Oscars, but received a special Oscar in 1996 for "50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community."\n\nHe also played an important role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist by publicly opposing Stanley Kubrick's intention to take credit for the screenplay of Spartacus, which had been adapted from Howard Fast's novel by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. Douglas had collaborated closely with Kubrick in Paths of Glory, where Douglas played one of his most memorable roles, as Colonel Dax, the commander of a French regiment during World War I ordered to make a suicidal attack.\n\nFor his contributions to the motion picture industry, Kirk Douglas has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Blvd. In 1984, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.\n\nIn October 2004, the avenue "Kirk Douglas Way" in Palm Springs, California was named in his honor by the Palm Springs International Film Society and International Film Festival.\n\nDouglas has been married twice, first to Diana Dill (born January 22, 1923; married November 2, 1943 - divorced in 1951), with whom he had two sons, actor Michael Douglas and producer Joel Douglas. And then to his second wife, Anne Buydens (married May 29, 1954 to the present) with whom he has two sons, producer Peter Vincent Douglas born November 23, 1955 and actor Eric Douglas (born June 1958; died July 6, 2004 of an accidental drug overdose).\n\nPopular at home and around the world, Kirk Douglas received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, the French Legion of Honor in 1985, and the National Medal of the Arts in 2001.\n\nIn 1996, Kirk Douglas suffered a stroke, partly impairing his ability to speak.