Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning »

Kirk Douglas has been a household name for six decades, appearing in more than eighty films. A three-time Academy Award nominee, Douglas received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, a special Oscar in 1996, and the National Medal of the Arts in 2001. He is also the author of the bestselling The Ragman's Son, Climbing the Mountain, and My Stroke of Luck.

He has been one of the brightest stars in Hollywood, a hard-charging actor whose intensity on the screen has been mirrored in his personal life. As Kirk Douglas has grown older - he turned ninety in December 2006 - he has become less impetuous and more reflective. In this poignant and inspiring new memoir, Douglas contemplates what life is all about, weighing current events from his present frame of mind while summoning the passions of his younger days.

Kirk Douglas is a born storyteller, and throughout Let's Face It he tells wonderful tales and shares favorite jokes and hard-won insights. In the book, he explores the mixed blessings of growing older and looks back at his childhood, his young adulthood, and his storied, glamorous, and colorful life and career in Hollywood. He tells delightful stories of the making of such films as Spartacus, Lust for Life, Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, and many others. He includes anecdotes about his friends Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan, Ava Gardner, Henry Kissinger, Fred Astaire, Yul Brynner, John Wayne, and Johnny Cash. He reveals the secrets that have kept him and his wife, Anne, happily married for more than five decades, and talks fondly and movingly of times spent with his sons, Michael, Peter, Eric, and Joel, and his grandchildren.

Douglas's life has been filled with pain as well as joy. In Let's Face It, he writes frankly for the first time about the tragic death of his son Eric from a drug overdose at age forty-five. Douglas tells what it was like to recover from several near-death episodes, including a helicopter crash, a stroke, and a cardiac event. He writes of his sadness thatmany of his closest friends are no longer with us; the book includes many moving stories such as one about a regular poker game at Frank Sinatra's house at which he and Anne have been fixtures along with Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, and their wives. Though many of the players are gone, the game continues to this day.

In Let's Face It, Douglas reflects on how his Jewish faith has become more and more important to him over the years. He offers strong opinions on everything from anti-Semitism to corporate greed, from racism to Hurricane Katrina, and from the war in Iraq to the situation in Israel. He writes about the importance in his life of the need to improve education for all children and about how we need to care more about the world and less about ourselves.

A must-read for every fan, this engrossing memoir provides an indelible self-portrait of a great star - while sharing the wit and wisdom Kirk Douglas has accumulated over a lifetime.

Foreword   Jack Valenti     11
Acknowledgments     13
Introduction     15
My Birthday     19
Two Heads Are Better Than One     24
A Day in My Life     34
Hoops of Steel     40
Amsterdam, New York     51
Children     59
My Sons     63
Eric     68
Dealing with Death     74
Harry's Haven     80
Don't Put Your Daughter (or Son) on the Stage!     83
Fans     91
Inside of Me     99
Romance Begins at Eighty     102
Never Forget     110
Be the Person Your Dogs Think You Are     117
Cemeteries     126
A Whale of a Tale     134
I Love Dogs     139
Trying Our Best     144
Some of My Best Friends Are Actors     148
Can We Talk?     156
Anne in Orbit     161
Decisions     165
Almost Dying     174
Mama's Boy     183
The Dangers of Celebrity     189
Thinking about Death     193
Passion Plays     202
SecondWedding     213
Hate     222
Real Heroes     228
Reading Obituaries     235
Laugh, Clown, Laugh     245
Knees     253
Put Your House in Order     261
Both Semites     268
Writing     275
Technology     278
Does God Laugh?     282
Greed Is Not Good     287
Stones and Flowers     293
Am I a Good Father?     300
Don't Be Too Religious     305
Hold the Gefilte Fish     311
Who's Minding the Store?     318
Israel     326
Sunset     337
Epilogue     340
Credits     343