Kirk Douglas: 'Spartacus' Actor To Publish E-Memoir, Michael Douglas To Narrate Audiobook

I Am Spartacus! Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist will be published by Open Road Media and is scheduled for release on June 12. It will also be available in paperback and as an audiobook, which will be read by Douglas' famous actor son, Michael Douglas. Actor George Clooney wrote the book's foreword. 

The 95-year-old Douglas, whose previous writings include the memoir My Stroke of Luck and the novel Dance With the Devil, starred in the title role and served as an executive producer for Kubrick's film, which was made towards the end of a blacklisting era in Hollywood that kept many high-profile creatives who were perceived to have connections to communism from working.

The blacklist was a witch hunt, destroying lives and careers without regard for the truth of the allegations, Douglas said in a statement. I was making a film about freedom at a time when freedom in America was in jeopardy. There are parallels to today's political climate, and I thought it was timely to set down my recollections about the making of the film. 

Douglas' Spartacus colleagues included the film's then-blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Trumbo's screenwriting credits included Roman Holiday and The Brave One, both of which won him an Academy Award. He was unable to accept either statuette at the time of its award. 

I have admired Kirk Douglas as an author ever since the publication of his first bestselling book, The Ragman's Son, in which he touched on the complicated and career-threatening decisions he took in producing Spartacus, which resulted in the breaking of the decade-long Hollywood blacklist, Open Road Integrated Media co-founder and CEO Jane Friedman said in a statement. I am thrilled that he finally decided -- with the wisdom and clarity of his 95 years -- to tell the definitive story of the making of this iconic film amid the shameful political climate of the time.

Watch the iconic I am Spartacus scene from the film here: