Kirk Douglas

Born: December 9 1916
Where: New York, USA

The dimple-chinned colossus along with John Wayne and Burt Lancaster was one of the front-rank stars of the 1950s.

Nominated three times for a best actor Academy Award (he turned down two Oscar-winnning roles) he also created a Hollywood dynasty through his four sons.

As head of The Bryna Company, he hired blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten", to adapt Spartacus in 1960.

This action, perhaps Douglas' overriding screen legacy, essentially ended the blacklist, allowing filmmakers banned a decade earlier during the McCarthy Communist "witch hunts", to openly resume their careers.

The son of illiterate Russian Jewish peasants, Douglas worked his way through both St Lawrence University, where he excelled at wrestling and dabbled in drama, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

His widely praised turn as a ghost-soldier in Broadway's The Wind Is Ninety in 1945 brought him to the attention of Hollywood.

He made his screen debut as a jaded weakling opposite Barbara Stanwyck in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

Douglas achieved stardom as the unscrupulous boxer Midge Kelly, punching his way to the top in Stanley Kramer's Champion and earned the first of his three Oscar nominations.

Douglas' pairing with director Vincente Minnelli produced the melodrama The Bad and the Beautiful, which attracted a second Oscar nomination.

A third followed for his memorable portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in Minnelli's biopic Lust for Life in 1956.

Their final collaboration, Two Weeks in Another Town, returned to the world of filmmaking, but was too dark for the box office.

Under his Bryna banner, Douglas made two films against the advice of everybody, and their subsequent artistic success justified his championing them.

Although Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory was a disappointment in its initial release, it has grown in stature through the years, well-deserving of its place in the front rank of anti-war films.

Douglas was even prouder of cult favourite Lonely Are the Brave, a western featuring a fugitive (Douglas) steeped in the values of the old West.

His electricity brightened most famously opposite Burt Lancaster in six feature films, including I Walk Alone and then again in Gunfight at the OK Corral.

The two (along with Laurence Olivier) delivered standout performances in the sparkling film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. in 1959.

He then showed up heavily disguised in character roles for John Huston's engaging murder mystery The List of Adrian Messenger.

Douglas and Lancaster returned to leading roles in John Frankenheimer's absorbing and believable Seven Days in May and brought the curtain down on their collaboration with the good-natured parody Tough Guys in 1986.

No actor suffered more on the screen in terms of mutilation and convincing horrible death.

He lost a finger in Howard Hawks' The Big Sky, an ear in Lust for Life, an eye in The Vikings and a leg in Scalawag (his directorial debut in 1973).

He was also impaled with scissors in Ace in the Hole, wrapped in barbed wire in Man Without a Star, crucified in Spartacus, and bullwhipped by his servant on his own orders in The Way West.

The senior citizen Douglas belied his age, starring frequently in features like Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough, The Fury and "Eddie Macon's Run.

In 1995 he suffered a stroke but still managed to star opposite Michael J Fox in the comedy Greedy.

TV work followed until he starred with his son Michael for the first time in Fred Schepisi's lacklustre It Runs in the Family.

In addition to Michael, Douglas has three other sons in the business, Joel and Peter are producers and Eric is an actor and stand-up comedian.

Fluent in French and German, he published his first book, the memoir The Ragman's Son and enjoys also success as an author.