AMSTERDAM — American actor Kirk Douglas celebrates his 100th birthday today after starting his life in the city of Amsterdam.
Growing up, Douglas was raised with his mother, father and six sisters. In his early life, he sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough money to help support his family before becoming the actor he is known as today.
Douglas made his film debut in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” in 1946 and became known for dramas, westerns and war movies. Some of his well-known movies include 1960 “Spartacus,” 1952 “The Bad and the Beautiful” and 1957 “Paths of Glory.”
In a blog page updated to keep fans connected to his life, Douglass recently spoke about his childhood years.
“I am in my 100th year. When I was born in 1916 in Amsterdam, New York, Woodrow Wilson was our president. My parents, who could not speak or write English, were emigrants from Russia. They were part of a wave of more than two million Jews that fled the Czar’s murderous pogroms at the beginning of the 20th Century,” Douglas said in the blog.
Douglas remarked in his life, the most incredible thing was not that women won the right to vote and one was the candidate of a major political party, but rather that an African-American was elected president.
“The longer I’ve lived, the less I’ve been surprised by the inevitability of change, and how I’ve rejoiced that so many of the changes I’ve seen have been good,” Douglas said in the blog.
