Kirk and Anne Douglas Award $1 Million Challenge Grant to Center Theatre Group

Stage and screen star Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne have awarded a $1 million challenge grant to the Los Angeles-based Center Theatre Group. This is in addition to the $1 million the couple earlier donated to CTG as a seed grant for new work.

In a statement, Kirk Douglas says, “Theatre was always my first love. In fact, when I came to Hollywood to make my first picture, I thought it was just a temporary detour. I would earn enough money to tide my family over only until my first long-run hit on Broadway. That never happened, and I soon resigned myself (believe me, it wasn’t hard!) to being a movie star. My second-choice career gave my wife and me an opportunity to give a lot of money to the Center Theatre Group over the years, a joyous commitment of which we continue to be extremely proud.”

The actor has appeared on Broadway in six shows: The Three Sisters, Kiss and Tell, Alice in Arms, The Wind Is Ninety, Woman Bites Dog and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He won an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 and was nominated for his work in Lust for Life, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Champion. His many other films include Spartacus, Seven Days in May, The Arrangement, The Way West, The Glass Menagerie, in which he played Jim, the Gentleman Caller, and Mourning Becomes Electra. He has also performed his solo show, Before I Forget, at the CTG theater named after him, the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

For more information, click here.