One of his most famous roles of course was in the film Spartacus, which had some basis on original events.
I say ‘some’ as I like to think that in reality the infamous post battle scene went something like this:
“I bring a message from your master, Marcus Licinius Crassus, commander of ltaly.
By command of His Most Merciful Excellency, your lives are to be spared. Slaves you were and slaves you remain. But the terrible penalty of CRUCIFICTION…has been set aside on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person ofthe slave called Spartacus.”
‘…’
“IT’S HIM!”
“Yes, that’s Spartacus, the one right in the middle, at the front of the army”
“Yeah, there he is, he’s stood next to pretty boy over there, the one with the funny nose, squinty eyes.”
The climactic scene in Spartacus was, of course, a reference to the infamous Hollywood blacklist of leftist actors, directors, scriptwriters etc. that Issur Danielovitch, as executive producer, was instrumental in breaking by ensuring those on the blacklist worked on the film.
Spartacus is great, but there was much more to Douglas than that… let’s not forget some of his other great roles: Ace In The Hole, The Bad & The Beautiful and, perhaps best of all, Paths Of Glory. And he was pretty good in The Vikings, Champion, Gunfight at the OK Corral (one of eight pictures he made with Burt Lancaster) and Detective Story.
A long time ago in the days when i lived with my parents, we watched the film, Paths of Glory, and my Dad explained to me that he got his chin dimple when an enemy bullet bounced off his chin causing it to dent, he was made of hard stuff.
Of course i believed my Dad back then, i was only 26 at the time.
