Righteous Fury
ON A 1988 TONIGHT SHOW BROADCAST, JOHNNY Carson asked Kirk Douglas what the actor felt was his best quality, not as an artist but as a man. Douglas, then 71 but looking decades younger, answered with his characteristic blend of soul-searching, candor, and unpredictability: “I think that anger, in a sense, has been a lot of the fuel that’s helped me in whatever I’ve done,” he reflected. “Anger has always been a big part of my life, and it’s always with me, and I think it always will be.” When the slightly bemused host observed that although many people wouldn’t consider that an asset, it’d probably boosted the star more than it had held him back, Douglas heartily concurred.
Hollywood’s last angry man found peace on February 5 at (1956), yearning to be everything to everyone and sublimate his fury into art, stabbing at the canvas in an act of exorcism as much as creation. This is an apt analogy for Douglas’s approach to his craft—blindingly vivid and textured, like the Dutch artist’s paintings, his performances conceal so little that they can alienate, but the raw emotion he brought to the screen is as vast and as roiling as .
