A Quote by Kirk Douglas

God bless Dad, he came to every one of my shows. I was bad, and I had horrible stage fright. My dad was so relieved - he'd say, 'You were terrible; this kid is not going to be an actor.' Finally, I did a play and he said, 'Son - you were really good.'
Michael [Douglas] is, I think, a great actor. He's made some very interesting pictures. When he was going to college, I was very proud of him, but when he said, 'Dad, I want to be in a play,' he had a bit part. I went to see it and Michael said, 'Dad, how was I?' I said, 'You were terrible.' I thought he would go on to be a lawyer and in three months, he was in another play and I went and, I must admit, he was great. I think he has been good in everything he's done.
I made a picture called Super Mario Bros., and my six-year-old son at the time - he's now 18 - he said, 'Dad I think you're probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros?' And I said, 'Well Henry, I did that so you could have shoes,' and he said, 'Dad, I don't need shoes that badly.'
I haven't really decided to be an actor yet! I started doing plays when I was about 15 or 16. I only did it because my dad saw a bunch of pretty girls in a restaurant and he asked them where they came from and they said drama group. He said, 'Son, that is where you need to go.'
I haven't really decided to be an actor yet! I started doing plays when I was about 15 or 16. I only did it because my dad saw a bunch of pretty girls in a restaurant and he asked them where they came from and they said drama group. He said, 'Son, that is where you need to go.
Well, my dad was into music, but he wasn't into me being into music. In my house when I was a kid, when I was real young, my dad wanted us all to play sports, and we were jock-like. We had a lot of money. And my brother was sort of the light of our family, and he was a good athlete. And I wasn't a very good athlete, but I tried to be. And then when I was 15 my dad went bankrupt, and we moved to Houston. And I went with him, but then I went back to Portland.
My mom and dad were actors when they were younger and had a horrible experience of it. My dad became a literary agent and my mom a casting director.
I remember a meeting I had at MGM. It was at the end of their reign. They say we have you under contract, and because you’re under contract, we’d like to you to work. I said, well, that seems fair. But if it’s a really good movie, they were going to give it to a particular actor that was not under contract. The bottom line was they were going to pay you more if it was a bad one and pay you less if it was a good one.
My youngest son's pre-school class was recently asked what their dads do for work. The responses were things like, my dad sells money, and my dad figures stuff out. My son said, 'I've never seen my dad do work.' It's true. Skateboarding doesn't seem like real work, but I'm proud of what I do.
My dad was listening to me noodle around on the guitar in the house and sing, and he was like, 'Man, you're funny, and you sound good when you do that. You should do that at a bar.' I had stage fright, so I was like, 'No, Dad. Leave me alone.'
I decided in my late teens that I wanted to be an actor, and my dad and I agreed that films were better. I work alongside my dad, you see. I've thought that films were better since I was a kid.
I would have loved to have had a gay dad. At school, there were always kids saying 'my dad is bigger than your dad, my dad will batter your dad!' So what? My dad will shag your dad..and your dad will enjoy it.
Dad and Mom were frustrated artists - Dad wanted to study engineering or architecture and Mom wanted to be an actress - but the world was a different place when they were young so Dad became a public works foreman and Mom became a stay-at-home mom. When I said I wanted to be a writer, they were thrilled. They did everything in their power to support me.
...When I asked [my dad why the sky was blue] he said it was because God's a boy. If God were a girl, the sky would be pink. 'What about sunrise and sunset?' I'd asked. Dad had looked dumbfounded. 'You kids. You think too much.' It frightened me how shallow the gene pool was that Liam and I were wading in.
In my career, I've had kind of a strange trajectory as an actor. I started out doing movies and theater and stuff, but then I had a terrible problem with stage fright as an actor on stage, and I quit stage acting for a long, long time.
I wanted to get into films, and my parents were against it. I convinced my mom, and finally she convinced my dad. My dad then felt, who best to launch his son than him? So he launched me, and here I am.
Honestly, I was such a tomboy as a kid. People were taking from their mothers' closets - I was taking from my dad's closet. It was the '80s, so it wasn't terrible, but I was wearing my dad's dress shirts over jeans from the Gap.
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