1. Melvyn Douglas was one of 24 performers to win the Triple Crown of Acting.
20 Facts About Melvyn Douglas
1. 2.
Melvyn Douglas was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Lena Priscilla and Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a concert pianist and composer.
3.
Melvyn Douglas's father was a Jewish emigrant from Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire.
4.
Melvyn Douglas wrote that he "admired them unstintingly"; they in turn, treated him like a son.
5.
Melvyn Douglas took the surname of his maternal grandmother and became known as Melvyn Douglas.
6.
Melvyn Douglas developed his acting skills in Shakespearean repertory while in his teens and with stock companies in Sioux City, Iowa, Evansville, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan.
7.
Melvyn Douglas served in the United States Army in World War I Melvyn Douglas established an outdoor theatre in Chicago.
8.
Melvyn Douglas had a long theatre, film and television career as a lead player, stretching from his 1930 Broadway role in Tonight or Never until just before his death.
9.
Melvyn Douglas shared top billing with Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton in James Whale's sardonic horror classic The Old Dark House in 1932.
10.
Melvyn Douglas appeared as the hero in the 1932 horror film The Vampire Bat and the sophisticated leading man in She Married Her Boss.
11.
Melvyn Douglas appeared with Joan Crawford in several films, most notably A Woman's Face, and starred opposite Greta Garbo in three films: As You Desire Me, Ninotchka and Garbo's final film Two-Faced Woman.
12.
From 1952 to 1961, Melvyn Douglas made no film appearances, concentrating instead on stage and television work.
13.
Melvyn Douglas won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the comedy-drama Being There.
14.
However, Melvyn Douglas confirmed in one of his final interviews that he refused to attend the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony because he could not bear having to compete against child actor Justin Henry for Kramer vs Kramer.
15.
Melvyn Douglas died before completing all of his scenes for the film The Hot Touch ; the film had to be edited to compensate for Douglas' incomplete role.
16.
Melvyn Douglas has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for movies located at 6423 Hollywood Boulevard and another for television at 6601 Hollywood Boulevard.
17.
Nixon accused Gahagan Melvyn Douglas of being soft on Communism because of her opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
18.
Melvyn and Helen Gahagan Douglas hired architect Roland Coate to design a home for them in 1938 on a 3-acre lot they owned in Outpost Estates, Los Angeles.
19.
Melvyn Douglas died a year later, in 1981, aged 80, from pneumonia and cardiac complications in New York City.
20.
Melvyn Douglas staged Moor Born, Mother Lode and Within the Gates and produced Call Me Mister.