Before there was Ridley Scott’s Gladiator there was Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, and before there was Russell Crowe, there was Kirk Douglas, an outsider and a tough guy in ways Kiwi Russ simply ain’t.
The Ragman’s Son is the story of two people, the movie star Kirk Douglas and Issur Danielovitch, the son of an illiterate Russian scrap metal merchant who was born into the most appalling poverty. As Douglas’s childhood reminiscences hint at more than ‘Damn, we had it hard’ bluff (with no food at home, he stole eggs from under a neighbour’s chicken and ate them raw) so his autobiography reminds you of the rare nature of his fame.
With a list of lovers that includes Marlene Dietrich and Rita Hayworth, he can afford to scotch some rumours (he denies romancing Lana Turner) while stoking others (he doesn’t buy Robert Mitchum’s claims about his own troubled past). And surprisingly, for a man with a continent-sized ego, he’s able to laugh at himself, claiming to have saved the world on screen more times than any actor while openly poking fun at his own service record.
The Ragman’s Son provokes almost as many emotion as it drops names (Jimmy Carter, cosmonaut Georgy Beregavoy and Anwar Sadat all crop up). More than anything, however, it captures the unique blend of arrogance, chutzpah and humour that enabaled Douglas to call his post-illness memoir A Stroke Of Luck.