Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch or И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American actor and film producer recognized for his prominent cleft chin, his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as "sons of bitches". He is the father of Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas. He was #17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time.

Douglas was born in Amsterdam, New York, to Bryna (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a businessman. Douglas's parents were illiterate Russian Jewish immigrants from Gomel, now in Belarus. His father's brother, who had emigrated earlier, used the surname of Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted. For a time, Douglas was known as Izzy Demsky, though his name was never legally changed to that.

Coming from a poor family, as a boy, Douglas sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough to buy milk and bread. Later, he delivered newspapers and claims to have worked at more than forty jobs before becoming an actor. He found living in a family of six sisters to be stifling, "I was dying to get out. In a sense, it lit a fire under me." During high school, he acted in school plays, and discovered "The one thing in my life that I always knew, that was always constant, was that I wanted to be an actor."