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From Kirk Douglas, Hollywood royalty and bestselling author of The Ragman’s Son and My Stroke of Luck, comes the candid story of the making of Spartacus, the blockbuster film that broke the blacklist
One
of the world’s most iconic movie stars, Kirk Douglas has distinguished
himself as a producer, philanthropist, and author of ten works of
fiction and memoir. Now, more than fifty years after the release of his
enduring epic Spartacus, Douglas reveals the riveting drama
behind the making of the legendary gladiator film. Douglas began
producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when
Hollywood’s moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist
sympathies. In a risky move, Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted
screenwriter, to write Spartacus. Trumbo was one of the
“Unfriendly Ten,” men who had gone to prison rather than testify before
the House Un-American Activities Committee about their political
affiliations. Douglas’s source material was already a hot property, as
the novel Spartacus was written by Howard Fast while he was in jail for defying HUAC.
With
the financial future of his young family at stake, Douglas plunged into
a tumultuous production both on- and off-screen. As both producer and
star of the film, he faced explosive moments with young director Stanley
Kubrick, struggles with a leading lady, and negotiations with giant
personalities, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter
Ustinov, and Lew Wasserman. Writing from his heart and from his own
meticulously researched archives, Kirk Douglas, at ninety-five, looks
back at his audacious decisions. He made the most expensive film of its
era—but more importantly, his moral courage in giving public credit to
Trumbo effectively ended the notorious Hollywood blacklist.
A master storyteller, Douglas paints a vivid and often humorous portrait in I Am Spartacus! The book is enhanced by newly discovered period photography of the stars and filmmakers both on and off the set.
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