Kirk Douglas recalls his 'Spartacus' days

Most of the fanfare surrounding the 83d Academy Awards focused on the ceremony's young hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, but it was 94-year-old screen legend Kirk Douglas who stole the show.

On hand to present the supporting-actress Oscar, Douglas earned plenty of laughs from the stage, where he teased Hugh Jackman and Colin Firth, flirted with Hathaway and category winner Melissa Leo, and performed a comedic shtick with his cane with the help of Omar Sharif's grandson, who shares a name with his famous relative.

Douglas, who earned an honorary Academy Award in 1996, says he had to be persuaded to make the appearance and that he marveled when he received countless calls, e-mails and letters the following day, congratulating him on his memorable turn. "Did everybody see me?" he said with a laugh when asked about the show during a recent interview at the Beverly Hills house he shares with his wife of 57 years, Anne.

A stroke he suffered in 1996 might have affected his speech, but it certainly hasn't robbed Douglas of his zeal for life. He's continued to make movies, in addition to writing books and starring in a one-man show, Before I Forget, at - where else? - the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. In person, he's sweet and funny, a force of nature.

His trademark sense of humor will be on display Friday at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where Douglas will be on hand for a special screening of Spartacus at the TCM Classic Film Festival, the weekend-long event celebrating vintage movies that starts Thursday with a restored 60th anniversary screening of An American in Paris.

Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne will be talking with Douglas before the screening of the lavish Stanley Kubrick-directed epic about a gladiator who leads a revolt of slaves against their Roman masters.

The film won Oscars for supporting actor Peter Ustinov and for its art direction and set direction, cinematography, and costume design, but it's also historic because Douglas, who produced the film, insisted that its blacklisted screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, get screen credit.

"The studios were intimidated; they embraced the blacklist," Douglas said. "You couldn't use a writer's name, and a blacklisted writer could not step foot in the studio. When I was thinking of breaking the blacklist, people were saying, 'Kirk, jeez, you will never work again.' But I think I was at the right age. If I would have been older I might have been too conservative. So I just said, 'The hell with it.' I left messages at the gate of the studio [Universal] that Dalton Trumbo will come on the set."

Douglas said he would go over to Trumbo's house to work on the script in the evenings. "He would be in his bathtub," the actor recalled. "He wrote most of the time there. He had a tray in his bathtub. He wanted a parrot and I bought him a parrot and sometimes the parrot would be on his shoulder."

The only surviving superstar of the generation of actors who came to fame near the end of World War II - a group that included Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, and Gregory Peck - Douglas was nominated for three lead-actor Oscars (for 1949's Champion, 1952's The Bad and the Beautiful, and 1956's Lust for Life) and appeared in other classics.

It was Douglas who brought in Kubrick to direct Spartacus after Universal initially hired director Anthony Mann, who made films for the studio including 1954's The Glenn Miller Story and several dark westerns with Jimmy Stewart. "I never wanted Anthony Mann," he said. "The studio wanted him because he had made so many successful pictures."

Douglas said that Mann was intimidated by the cast, which also included Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, and Tony Curtis. "Ustinov captivated him," Douglas said. "He saw Ustinov as a genius, so he let him do whatever he wanted. After three weeks, the studio said, 'Kirk, you were right. You have to fire him.' "

Mann, said Douglas, took the firing well, and the pair went on to make the 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark. As fate would have it, at the same time Douglas fired Mann, Marlon Brando fired Kubrick from the Western One-Eyed Jacks, which was released in 1961.

"I sent the [Spartacus] script to Stanley over the weekend, and on Monday he was at the studio ready to direct," Douglas said. "I remember when I introduced him to the cast, he looked like he was about 14, like a little kid. I said, 'This is your new director.' They thought I was joking. Kubrick wasn't intimidated. He did a great job."

Douglas said Spartacus remains relevant today. "Spartacus was a real character," Douglas said. "Not much is known about him because the Romans didn't want to have any historical facts about a slave who almost overturned the Roman Empire. Spartacus came from Libya. Libya right now is fighting for freedom, but the only thing that they lack is a Spartacus. They don't have a leader, and I hope they will have. So many countries are suddenly fighting for freedom, and that is the story of Spartacus, who was crucified about 100 years before Jesus Christ."