Buried Child THE RAGMAN'S SON

By Stefan Kanfer

Herschel Danielovitch was an intimidating, alcoholic junk dealer who ignored his six daughters and his only son Issur. Then one night at their home in upstate New York, the boy splashed hot tea in the old man's face. The punishment was brutal, the reward immeasurable. "At that moment," Issur was to recall, "he knew I was alive. I have never done anything as brave in any movie."

One way or another, Kirk Douglas has been repeating that gesture most of his life. In this vigorous, anecdotal autobiography, the actor maintains that the clamorous spirit of Issur "has never left me. He is always somewhere within me, often out of sight, but never too far away . . . Often, I tried to kill him, but he never dies." At St. Lawrence University, the ragman's son was the target of anti-Semites. He answered them by becoming a varsity wrestling champion, then running successfully for office. "The alumni were furious," Douglas remembers with perverse delight: " 'What's happening to SLU? A Jew boy president of the student body!' "

After a few undistinguished turns on Broadway, the male ingenue, now equipped with a marquee name, headed west. His wife and baby son Michael followed in his slipstream. In his first film, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Barbara Stanwyck was indifferent to her co-star for several weeks. One morning her manner changed: "She said, 'Hey, you're pretty good.' I said, 'Too late, Miss Stanwyck.' "

His reputation for orneriness did not improve when he got divorced. Gene Tierney refused to greet him at her front door. "She would leave the window to her bedroom open, and I would climb in." His close relationship with Evelyn Keyes ended abruptly: "I don't know why. I was there one night, left early, and never went back." There was a brief dalliance with Marlene Dietrich, but she "seemed to love you much more if you were not well. When you became strong and healthy, she loved you less." Then there was Joan Crawford. "At dinner, she was glamorous and very attentive . . . We went back to her house. We never got past the foyer . . . Afterward, we got dressed. She took me upstairs and proudly showed me the two children -- how they were strapped so tightly into their beds, how she diapered them so efficiently. It was so professional, clinical, lacking in warmth, like the sex we just had. I got out fast."

Douglas went on to consolidate his reputation as a heel, both onscreen (Champion, Detective Story) and off. "Now that you've got a big hit," Columnist Hedda Hopper once told him, "you've become a real son of a bitch." Douglas corrected her: "I was always a son of a bitch. You just never noticed before." He attempts to hold that title with a series of vengeful recollections. Douglas salutes Stanley Kubrick, then recalls that the director was willing to take full credit for the script of a blacklisted writer. John Huston was "one of the most talented men in the industry. But John could also be a charlatan." Henry Fonda was "a wonderful actor, but when I looked at him, I remembered him at that party years ago, snickering with his wife, talking the girl I had brought into dropping me, sneaking out the back door with Jimmy Stewart . . . How cruel of them. And how petty of me not to forget."

These salvos are endlessly diverting, but they represent the last tantrum of the buried child. Before the fade-out, Douglas acknowledges that his best roles were impersonations of moral stalwarts (Lonely Are the Brave, Lust for Life, Paths of Glory). And that despite his pose as a jut-jawed sinner, he has been trying to emulate those heroes for more than a generation. His production company is named Bryna in honor of his mother. He remarried and has stayed married for more than 30 years. He has helped all four sons to prosper in Hollywood, and none of them ever found it necessary to fling tea in his face. That may be the ultimate reward. For after some 75 pictures, three Oscar nominations, innumerable charity works and goodwill tours, and a Medal of | Freedom from the President, the 71-year-old star is finally ready to cede the spotlight. As proof, he records a chance meeting with a beautiful admirer. "I suck in my gut, puff out my chest, slap a bicep. In a velvet voice, she says, 'Wow! Michael Douglas's father!' " Issur should live so long.