KIRK DOUGLAS Regrets & REDEMPTION

HE CLIMBED TO THE TOP IN HOLLYWOOD, BUT HEARTBREAK MADE HIM A BETTER MAN

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Kirk Douglas, with his granite jaw, dimpled chin and penetrating gaze, was among the world's biggest film stars. In the 1950s and '60s, he starred in war movies, epics, biopics and westerns - making as many as three films a year. But ironically, Kirk enjoyed his happiest, most fulfilling days offscreen in the last decades of his life.

It took three terrible events – a tragic helicopter crash, a debilitating stroke, and the death of a son to push Kirk to change his ways and devote his life to family, faith and charity. “I feel that every brush I had with death changed me and made me a better person,” Kirk wrote in his 2007 memoir Let's Face It. “I began to think less about myself and more about other people.”