Unknown author · Public domain

Born Issur Danielovitch to an impoverished family, Douglas built a career on a particular kind of forceful, often self-destructive leading man, earning Oscar nominations for Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and his performance as Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956). He founded his own production company, Bryna, in 1949 and used it to make Paths of Glory and Spartacus with a young Stanley Kubrick — films he had the leverage, as both star and producer, to insist on making.