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Kirk Douglas Issues Editorial on His 90th Birthday
yahoo News ^ | December 9, 2006 | Kirk Douglas

Posted on 12/11/2006 5:04:05 AM PST by Mel Gibson

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- My name is Kirk Douglas. You may know me. If you don't ... Google me. I was a movie star and I'm Michael Douglas' dad, Catherine Zeta-Jones' father-in-law, and the grandparents of their two children. Today I celebrate my 90th birthday.

I have a message to convey to America's young people. A 90th birthday is special. In my case, this birthday is not only special but miraculous. I survived World War II, a helicopter crash, a stroke, and two new knees.

It's a tradition that when a "birthday boy" stands over his cake he makes a silent wish for his life and then blows out the candles. I have followed that tradition for 89 years but on my 90th birthday, I have decided to rebel. Instead of making a silent wish for myself, I want to make a LOUD wish for THE WORLD.

Let's face it: THE WORLD IS IN A MESS and you are inheriting it. Generation Y, you are on the cusp. You are the group facing many problems: abject poverty, global warming, genocide, AIDS, and suicide bombers to name a few. These problems exist, and the world is silent. We have done very little to solve these problems. Now, we leave it to you. You have to fix it because the situation is intolerable

(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News
KEYWORDS: actor; ageing; kirkdouglas
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To: Mel Gibson

If he felt he had to get on a soapbox, he should have been more explicit about global ills and about the real and immediate threat to all of us which the terrorists pose. Like the Orientals say, "calling a thing by it s right name is the beginning of wisdom" At 90, he should know that too.


61 posted on 12/11/2006 6:43:30 AM PST by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else." Lucius Septimus Severus)
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To: Drawsing
I liked him as the asylum attendant in "Harvey" with George James (Jimmy) Stewart.

Fixed

I don't believe Douglas was in Harvey.
 

62 posted on 12/11/2006 6:52:05 AM PST by zeugma (I reject your reality and substitute my own in its place. (http://www.zprc.org/))
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To: Mel Gibson
ON Dec the 25th we celebrate the birth of the greatest man who ever lived period. When He was born was the world right? At anytime in history has the world been right? In ww2 did the world think this is the end? During the plague in Europe did people think it was the end? At anytime did people not believe that the world was or is nuts? Things happen , but one thing I know with evil comes good from some where .I am sure in my heart that God does not let his world down. Maybe because things here are not easy we think that way. But believe me if the devil sends evil, God sends his good. We have a choice, that is what God gave and and still does. The world is as nuts as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow.One thing though, the good in the world is also there too. Happy Birthday JESUS!
63 posted on 12/11/2006 7:15:54 AM PST by betsyross1776
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To: Drawsing

Douglas was NOT in Harvey and the actor's name is Jimmy Stewart. Wow lots of mistakes in one short sentence!!!!


64 posted on 12/11/2006 7:42:34 AM PST by Hildy ("Death plucks my ear and says - LIVE - I am coming.....")
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To: Drawsing
You meam Jimmy Steward?
65 posted on 12/11/2006 7:43:39 AM PST by shiva
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To: MinuteGal

I don't disagree with anything you've written...I would just like to question why you felt the need to say his "SECOND WIFE, FRENCH BORN...." He's been married to that second wife for 52 years. 40 years longer than he was married to his first wife, Michael's mother. Was your point that he's a Divorced man (Oh, the horrors) or that his wife is French? I'm confused.


66 posted on 12/11/2006 7:50:01 AM PST by Hildy ("Death plucks my ear and says - LIVE - I am coming.....")
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To: ImProudToBeAnAmerican

Soylent Green?


67 posted on 12/11/2006 7:56:06 AM PST by fhlh (Liberal (noun): A person so open minded, their brains have fallen out of their head.)
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To: MinuteGal

I know that Kirk Douglas was a friend of the Reagans and used to go to their functions.


68 posted on 12/11/2006 8:15:17 AM PST by Revenge of Sith
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To: All

Kirk Douglas is a Democrat AND a Jew. I have always wondered why many American Hollywood Jews are Dims in a world where the Jewish state, Israel, needs every supporter it can get...and many times they DO NOT support Israel. Streisand is one most well known and vocal. She is a LIBERAL first, and Jewish second. It explaines a lot. Most of America detests the Hollywood types who use their movie fame for political reasons. I heard Mike Douglas say years ago, that was the kiss of death...to keep political views personal..and I think he pretty well does. To the contrary, his wife does not, and apparently Kirk doesn't either. Kirk's legacy of fine films is enough and those films are quite in vogue today!


69 posted on 12/11/2006 8:28:04 AM PST by cousair
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To: alicewonders

I think its because he wrote the editorial to appeal to the Gen Yers, and they know who Catherine Zeta-Jones is. They are less likely to know who Michael Douglas is, and who his previous wife and children were. He simply used the easiest way for people to say, 'oh yeah, I know her'.


70 posted on 12/11/2006 8:31:53 AM PST by rintense (Liberals stand for nothing and are against everything- unless it benefits them.)
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To: Hildy
Just an autobiographical note as noted in Yahoo search.

The majority of French today tend to be socialists, like Douglas. The "second wife" was to differentiate from his first marriage. For all I know, she may be a flaming conservative at odds politically all these years from her husband, but I really doubt it.

BTW, I'm of French descent on my father's side. My maiden name is that of a patron saint of France and a parish of Louisiana. Not that it makes me a saint.

Leni

71 posted on 12/11/2006 8:35:46 AM PST by MinuteGal (The Left takes power only through deception.)
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To: MinuteGal
"Autobiographical" = biographical.

I was too lackadaisical.

Leni

72 posted on 12/11/2006 8:38:43 AM PST by MinuteGal (The Left takes power only through deception.)
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To: Lurker
"I'm Ben-Hur!...No, I'm Ben-Hur!"

"Get you're stinking paws off of me , you damned dirty Romans!"

73 posted on 12/11/2006 8:41:13 AM PST by ProCivitas (ProFamily + FairTrade: Duncan Hunter for President in '08)
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To: zeugma
I liked him as the asylum attendant in "Harvey" with George James (Jimmy) Stewart.

Fixed

I don't believe Douglas was in Harvey.

The Maytag Repairman, Jesse White.

74 posted on 12/11/2006 8:47:06 AM PST by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken!)
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To: Mel Gibson

At some point, all actors begin to believe their gushing reviews.


75 posted on 12/11/2006 8:52:41 AM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: shiva
Sorry everyone, my obtuse sense of humor went entirely unappreciated. Harvey is one of my favorite movies and Jimmy Stewart one of my favorite actors. I know Kirk Douglas was not in it.

However one of my favorite memories is when Kirk Douglas dove off of the Golden Gate bridge in "Tarzan Goes to San Francisco".

76 posted on 12/11/2006 8:55:57 AM PST by Drawsing (The fool shows his annoyance at once. The prudent man overlooks an insult. (Proverbs 12:16))
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To: SMARTY

Some people are as Naive at 90 as they were at 9.

Kirk's an egoist. Notice how rather than humbly calling himself an actor, he chose instead to refer to himself as a "MOVIE STAR" ?


77 posted on 12/11/2006 9:01:39 AM PST by F.J. Mitchell (It takes pillage of many a village to raise a low down liberal skunk to a position of privilege.)
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To: Drawsing

Uh, no.


78 posted on 12/11/2006 9:06:53 AM PST by Williams
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To: Rummyfan

It's hard to say Paths of Glory is a greater movie than Spartacus, but it is at least equally great. I never forget the girl singing that haunting song at the end (Kubrick married her).


79 posted on 12/11/2006 9:09:12 AM PST by Williams
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To: what's up
Douglas was an entertaining actor, but he he took the lead in allowing the communist Hollywood 10 to be accepted in society again. He's always been a UN activist and his son has inherited the mantle.

Yup

His movie "Spartacus" was based on a book by Howard Fast, whose Communist past got him blacklisted by the Hollywood studios. Dalton Trumbo, another blacklisted writer, worked on the script. Douglas was considered responsible for fighting to make sure Trumbo got screen credit under his own name.

Fast and Trumbo saw the Roman slave revolt as an allegory for Communist revolution: an inspiration for the revolt of the proletariat against their bourgeois "masters." That symbolism was mostly lost on American moviegoers, and probably Douglas too. He was likely doing the fashionable Hollywood "thing" that remains in vogue among not-very-bright members of the pampered acting class.

This letter written by William F. Buckley about Howard Fast is interesting IMO: Howard Fast

80 posted on 12/11/2006 9:21:29 AM PST by Bernard Marx
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