Kirk Douglas

He was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood, a hard-charging actor whose intensity on the screen was mirrored in his personal life. As Kirk Douglas grew older, he became less impetuous and more reflective. In this poignant and inspiring new memoir, Douglas contemplates what life is all about, weighing current events from his frame of mind at ninety while summoning the passions of his younger days. Kirk Douglas was a born storyteller, and throughout Let's Face It he tells wonderful tales and shares favorite jokes and hard-won insights. In the book, he explores the mixed blessings of growing older and looks back at his childhood, his young adulthood, and his storied, glamorous, and colorful life and career in Hollywood. He tells delightful stories of the making of such films as Spartacus, Lust for Life, Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, and many others. He includes anecdotes about his friends Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan, Ava Gardner, Henry Kissinger, Fred Astaire, Yul Brynner, John Wayne, and Johnny Cash. He reveals the secrets that kept him and his wife, Anne, happily married for more than five decades, and talks fondly and movingly of times spent with his sons, Michael, Peter, Eric, and Joel, and his grandchildren. Douglas's life was filled with pain as well as joy. In Let's Face It, he writes frankly for the first time about the tragic death of his son Eric from a drug overdose at age forty-five. Douglas tells what it was like to recover from several near-death episodes, including a helicopter crash, a stroke, and a cardiac event. He writes of his sadness that many of his closest friends are no longer with us; the book includes many moving stories such as one about a regular poker game at Frank Sinatra's house at which he and Anne were fixtures along with Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, and their wives. Though many of the players are gone, the game continues to this day. In Let's Face It, Douglas reflects on how his Jewish faith became more and more important to him over the years. He offers strong opinions on everything from anti-Semitism to corporate greed, from racism to Hurricane Katrina, and from the war in Iraq to the situation in Israel. He writes about the importance in his life of the need to improve education for all children and about how we need to care more about the world and less about ourselves.

Retells five Old Testament stories in which Abraham, Rebecca, Joseph, Miriam, and David perform heroic deeds in their youth.

With the simple power and astonishing candor that made his 1988 autobiography, The Ragman's Son, a bestseller, Kirk Douglas now shares his quest for spirituality and Jewish identity - and his heroic fight to cover some crippling injuries and a devastating stroke. With the narrative skill that has made him a successful novelist, Kirk Douglas not only takes the reader through his own near-death experience but tells the story of his stubborn struggle to make sense of his own life, to come to terms with the reality of death, and to answer the "big questions" that eventually confront us all: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Who is God?

An aging fitness instructor and a young librarian, who work in the same hospital, decide to cut costs and share an apartment, much to the disapproval of fellow workers and the instructor's own daughter, a psychologist. There is romance and there is murder. By the author of Dance with the Devil.

A spy should know better, but this spy gets stuck on a blind-date assignment with the ex-partner who broke her heart. A lot of making up can get done between scaling rooftops and dodging bullets.

"Film legend Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne look back on a lifetime filled with love and drama both on and off the screen. Sharing priceless correspondence with each other as well as the celebrities and world leaders they called friends, Kirk and Anne is a candid portrayal of the pleasures and pitfalls of a Hollywood life. Compiled from Anne's private archive of letters and photographs, this is an intimate glimpse into the Douglases' courtship and marriage set against the backdrop of Kirk's screen triumphs, including The Vikings, Lust For Life, Paths of Glory, and Spartacus. The letters themselves, as well as Kirk and Anne's vivid descriptions of their experiences, reveal remarkable insight and anecdotes about the legendary figures they knew so well, including Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, the Kennedys, and the Reagans. Filled with photos from film sets, private moments, and public events, Kirk and Anne details the adventurous, oftentimes comic, and poignant reality behind the glamour of a Hollywood life--as only a couple of over six decades could tell it."--Jacket.

Ten-year-old Jody carefully grooms and trains the red pony colt his father has given him, only to face the possibility of losing him to sickness.

1 online resource (96 pages)