Kirk Douglas
More Is Never Enough
Darwin Porter & Danforth Prince
Douglas was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, his father a collector and seller of rags. After service in the Navy during World War II, he moved to Hollywood, oozing masculinity and charm. Conquering Tinseltown and bedding its leading ladies, he became the personification of the American dream, moving from obscurity and (literally) rags to riches and major-league fame.
En route to his status as a myth and legend, his performances reflected both his personal pain and the brutalization of the characters he played, too. In Champion (1949), he was beaten to a fatal bloody pulp. As the sleazy, heartless reporter in Ace in the Hole (1951), he was stabbed with a knife in his gut. As Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), he writhed in emotional agony and unrequited love before slicing off his ear with a razor. His World War I movie, Paths of Glory (1957), grows more profound over the years. He lost an eye in The Vikings (1958), and, as the Thracian slave leading a revolt against Roman legions in Spartacus (1960), he was crucified.
All of this is brought out, with photos and stories you've probably never heard before, in this remarkable testimonial to the last hero of Hollywood's swashbuckling Golden Age, an inspiring testimonial to the values and core beliefs of an America that's Gone With the Wind, yet lovingly remembered as a time when it, in many ways, was truly great.
Details
Paperback 978-936003-61-7 $34.95
Trim size 6x9 Ppg 680
About the Author:
“Darwin Porter is the master of guilty pleasures. There is nothing like reading him for passing the hours. He is the Nietzsche of Naughtiness, the Goethe of Gossip, the Proust of Pop Culture. Porter knows all the nasty buzz anyone has ever heard whispered in dark bars, dim alleys, and confessional booths. And lovingly, precisely, and in as straightforward a manner as an oncoming train, his prose whacks you between the eyes with the greatest gossip since Kenneth Anger. Some would say better than Anger.” (as quoted from Alan W. Petrucelli’s THE ENTERTAINMENT REPORT at Examiner.com).
Porter began his career writing about politics and the entertainment industry for Knight Newspapers and The Miami Herald. Today, he’s one of the most prolific biographers in the world. His portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Howard Hughes, John and Jackie Kennedy, Paul Newman, Merv Griffin, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, and Michael Jackson have generated widespread reviews and animated radio and blogsite commentaries worldwide. Some of his biographies have been serialized to millions of readers in The Sunday Times of London and The Mail on Sunday.
Porter is also the well-known original author of many editions of The Frommer Guides, a respected travel guidebook series that’s among the most prominent and well-respected in the world.
