NEW YORK, N.Y. – He was born Issur Danielovitch, a ragman’s son. He died Kirk Douglas, a Hollywood king.
Douglas, the muscular, tempestuous actor with the dimpled chin, lived out an epic American tale of reinvention and perseverance, from the riches he acquired and risked to the parts he took on and the boundaries he defied. Among the most preferred, multipurpose and recognizable leading adult males of the twentieth century, he could will himself into a function or a preferred result in as mightily as he willed himself out of poverty.
Douglas, who died Wednesday at 103, was a pressure