Douglas, Kirk (1916– )

US film actor. Usually cast as a dynamic though ill-fated hero, as in Spartacus (1960), he was a major star of the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in such films as Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1953), Paths of Glory (1957), The Vikings (1958), and The War Wagon (1967). He received lifetime achievement awards from the American Film Institute in 1991, the Academy Awards in 1995, and the Screen Actors Guild in 1999.

Among his other films are Champion (1949), Detective Story (1951), Lust for Life (1956), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), Tough Guys (1986), and Greedy (1994). Despite suffering from a stroke in 1996, Douglas made Diamonds in 1999.

Douglas published the memoirs The Ragman's Son: An Autobiography (1988), Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning (1997), and My Stroke of Luck (2002). He is the father of the actor Michael Douglas.