A “lively” memoir by the Hollywood legend about the making of Spartacus, with a foreword by George Clooney (Los Angeles Times). One of the world’s most iconic movie stars, Kirk Douglas has distinguished himself as a producer, philanthropist, and author of ten works of fiction and memoir. Now, more than fifty years after the release of his enduring epic Spartacus, Douglas reveals the riveting drama behind the making of the legendary gladiator film. Douglas began producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when Hollywood’s moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist sympathies. In a risky move, Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted screenwriter, to write Spartacus. Trumbo was one of the “Unfriendly Ten,” men who had gone to prison rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about their political affiliations. Douglas’s source material was already a hot property, as the novel Spartacus was written by Howard Fast while he was in jail for defying HUAC. With the financial future of his young family at stake, Douglas plunged into a tumultuous production both on- and off-screen. As both producer and star of the film, he faced explosive moments with young director Stanley Kubrick, struggles with a leading lady, and negotiations with giant personalities, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, and Lew Wasserman. Writing from his heart and from his own meticulously researched archives, Kirk Douglas, at ninety-five, looks back at his audacious decisions. He made the most expensive film of its era—but more importantly, his moral courage in giving public credit to Trumbo effectively ended the notorious Hollywood blacklist. A master storyteller, Douglas paints a vivid and often humorous portrait in I Am Spartacus! The book is enhanced by newly discovered period photography of the stars and filmmakers both on and off the set.

Kirk Douglas reveals the drama behind the making of the legendary gladiator film Spartacus. Douglas began producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when Hollywood's moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist sympathies. In a risky move, Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted screenwriter, to write Spartacus. Trumbo was one of the men who had gone to prison rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The source novel was written by Howard Fast while he too was in jail for defying HUAC. With the future of his young family at stake, Douglas plunged into a tumultuous production. As both producer and star, he faced explosive moments with young director Stanley Kubrick, struggles with a leading lady, and negotiations with giant personalities, Now, at 95, Douglas looks back at his audacious decisions. He made the most expensive film of its era--but more importantly, his moral courage in giving public credit to Trumbo effectively ended the Hollywood blacklist.--From publisher description.

The book is meant to be a guide for the neophyte as well as a training manual that a seasoned executive can use for weeks on end to train his team about fundamentals they will use their entire working life. Many actual life experience stories and or actual meetings you might perform are interwoven into the metaphors of Gladiatorial ages and sports in general.

“Gritty, passionate and violent . . . a real page-turner and a damn good read. It brings Spartacus—and ancient Rome—to vivid, colorful life.” —Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire Sink your teeth into the gritty, powerful tale of Spartacus, The Gladiator, a historical thriller that will grip you from the first page to the very last. Written by bestselling novelist Ben Kane, this epic journey delves into the life of Spartacus—from Roman auxiliary and slave to revered gladiator and a symbol of defiance against the most potent army of the era. Step onto the unforgiving sands of the gladiatorial arena and experience the brutality and raw energy of combat at its most primal. Witness the audacious bid for freedom led by Spartacus and his band of gladiators as they risk everything to break free from their shackles and challenge their oppressors—the mighty, ever-expanding Roman Empire. Spartacus’s tale isn’t just a story of rebellion; it’s an exploration of humanity, resilience, love, and sacrifice, set against the historic grandeur of ancient Rome. Charged with emotion and vivid color, this novel will transport you back in time to the underbelly of the Roman Empire—a journey that’s as thrilling as it is enlightening. Enjoy a fresh perspective of the legend that is Spartacus, one that goes deeper than ever before, uncovering the man at the heart of the myth. “You’ll swear you hear the thunder of the Coliseum and the roar of the lions in the pit!” —James Rollins “A compulsive, relentless story, vividly recounted in muscular prose.” —The Daily Telegraph (UK) “Powerful . . . The quest for freedom against overwhelming odds is just the beginning.” —Library Journal

The best-selling novel about a slave revolt in ancient Rome and the basis for the popular motion picture.

Winner of the 2021 Wolfson History Prize “Black Spartacus is a tour de force: by far the most complete, authoritative and persuasive biography of Toussaint that we are likely to have for a long time . . . An extraordinarily gripping read.” —David A. Bell, The Guardian A new interpretation of the life of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture Among the defining figures of the Age of Revolution, Toussaint Louverture is the most enigmatic. Though the Haitian revolutionary’s image has multiplied across the globe—appearing on banknotes and in bronze, on T-shirts and in film—the only definitive portrait executed in his lifetime has been lost. Well versed in the work of everyone from Machiavelli to Rousseau, he was nonetheless dismissed by Thomas Jefferson as a “cannibal.” A Caribbean acolyte of the European Enlightenment, Toussaint nurtured a class of black Catholic clergymen who became one of the pillars of his rule, while his supporters also believed he communicated with vodou spirits. And for a leader who once summed up his modus operandi with the phrase “Say little but do as much as possible,” he was a prolific and indefatigable correspondent, famous for exhausting the five secretaries he maintained, simultaneously, at the height of his power in the 1790s. Employing groundbreaking archival research and a keen interpretive lens, Sudhir Hazareesingh restores Toussaint to his full complexity in Black Spartacus. At a time when his subject has, variously, been reduced to little more than a one-dimensional icon of liberation or criticized for his personal failings—his white mistresses, his early ownership of slaves, his authoritarianism —Hazareesingh proposes a new conception of Toussaint’s understanding of himself and his role in the Atlantic world of the late eighteenth century. Black Spartacus is a work of both biography and intellectual history, rich with insights into Toussaint’s fundamental hybridity—his ability to unite European, African, and Caribbean traditions in the service of his revolutionary aims. Hazareesingh offers a new and resonant interpretation of Toussaint’s racial politics, showing how he used Enlightenment ideas to argue for the equal dignity of all human beings while simultaneously insisting on his own world-historical importance and the universal pertinence of blackness—a message which chimed particularly powerfully among African Americans. Ultimately, Black Spartacus offers a vigorous argument in favor of “getting back to Toussaint”—a call to take Haiti’s founding father seriously on his own terms, and to honor his role in shaping the postcolonial world to come. Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize | Finalist for the PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Named a best book of the year by the The Economist | Times Literary Supplement | New Statesman

Born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, the son of an illiterate immigrant Russian-Jewish ragpicker and junkman, Kirk Douglas makes clear in this powerful, angry, and passionate book the ways in which his difficult childhood dominated his life as an actor, father, and man. 16 pages of photographs.