- published: 01 Dec 2014
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Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, Russian: И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962).
He is No.17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time, making him the highest-ranked living person on the list. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."
Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a businessman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel, Belarus. His father's brother, who emigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted in the United States. In addition to their surname, his parents also changed their given names to Harry and Bertha. Douglas grew up as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the Navy during World War II.
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2009. He is the eldest of actor Kirk Douglas's four sons.
Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the first child of actor Kirk Douglas and Bermudian-born actress Diana Dill. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel in Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire). His mother was from Devonshire Parish, Bermuda; Douglas's maternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill, served as Attorney General of Bermuda and was commanding officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery. Douglas has a younger brother, Joel Douglas (born 1947), and two paternal half-brothers, Peter Douglas (born 1955) and Eric Douglas (1958–2004), from stepmother Anne Buydens.
Donald Jay "Don" Rickles (born May 8, 1926) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic.
Rickles was born in the New York City borough of Queens to Max Rickles, who had emigrated in 1902 with his parents Joseph and Frances Rickles from Kaunas, Lithuania (then in the Russian Empire), and Etta (Feldman) Rickles, born in New York to immigrant parents from the Austrian Empire. His family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Rickles grew up in the Jackson Heights area.
After graduating from Newtown High School, Rickles enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served during World War II on the USS Cyrene as a seaman first class. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then played bit parts on television. Frustrated by a lack of acting work, Rickles began doing stand-up comedy. He became known as an insult comedian by responding to his hecklers. The audience enjoyed these insults more than his prepared material, and he incorporated them into his act. When he began his career in the early 1950s he started calling ill-mannered members of the audience a "hockey puck". His style was similar to an older insult comic, "Mr. Warmth" Jack E. Leonard, though Rickles denies that Leonard influenced his style.
Actors: Gerry Bruno (actor), Charles Bane (producer), Charles Bane (director), Greg Antley (actor), Rachael Small (actress), Stefani Johnson (actress), Andrew Hoelscher (actor), Andrew Hoelscher (actor), Andrew Hoelscher (actor), Zachary Stalling (actor), Matt Duncan (actor), Tommy Kennedy (actor), Zachary Stalling (actor), Cameron White (actor), Clint White (actor),
Plot: Kubrick's Casting Couch is a parody/homage to the films of director Stanley Kubrick. The film details Kubrick's attempt to cast, film, and screen his first feature, Fear and Desire. The cast of characters includes Kubrick himself, his first wife Toba, fledgling actor Paul Mazursky, and several 'characters' from Kubrick's later films.
Genres: Comedy, Short,