It would be difficult to imagine an actor that has had a more distinguished career than Kirk Douglas. His career has lasted more than sixty-five years – more than any other living entertainment personality.

He has appeared in more than ninety movies – including such classics as Young Man With a Horn;  Lust for Life, the film biography of Vincent Van Gogh; Paths of Glory, one of the finest anti-war movies ever made; and, of course Spartacus. He played the role of Mickey Marcus, the American Jewish hero of Israel’s War of Independence, in the movie Cast a Giant Shadow.

Tomorrow is Kirk Douglas’s one hundredth birthday – and he is a great Jew.

I suspect that Kirk Douglas would be surprised to hear those words.

He was born Issur Danielovitch, in Amsterdam, New York. This is how he described his early years:

My father, who had been a horse trader in Russia, got himself a horse and a small wagon, and became a ragman, buying old rags, pieces of metal, and junk for pennies, nickels, and dimes. … Even in the poorest section of town, where all the families were struggling, the ragman was on the lowest rung on the ladder. And I was the ragman’s son.

And as for his Jewish identity?

Judaism and I parted ways a long time ago, when I was a poor kid. Back then, I was pretty good in cheder, so the Jews of our community thought they would do a wonderful thing and collect enough money to send me to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. That scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to be a rabbi. I wanted to be an actor. Believe me, the members of the Sons of Israel were persistent. I had nightmares – wearing long payos and a black hat. I had to work very hard to get out of it. But it took me a long time to learn that you don’t have to be a rabbi to be a Jew.

Let’s go back to the origins of the motion picture industry.

The moguls who created the studio system were eastern European Jewish immigrants. They saw their journey to Hollywood as the next step on their immigration to America, and an emigration away from their Jewish origins.

Hollywood was how Jews could become “real” white bread Americans. Joseph Levitch became Jerry Lewis. Allan Stewart Konigsberg became Woody Allen. Lawrence Harvey Zeigler became Larry King.

And, yes, Issur Danielovitch became Kirk Douglas.

It might not have been because those Jews wanted assimilate.

It might have been because they were afraid.

From the very beginning, many Americans looked upon Hollywood with growing suspicion.

Hollywood was the product of immigrants, and many Americans looked down upon immigrants.

Hollywood represented urban sophistication; many Americans romanticized the rural at the expense of the urban.

Many Americans saw movies, and they did not like what they saw. They did not like the values that they saw on the silver screen. They knew that Jews were producing those movies, and they therefore believed that Jews were responsible for destroying traditional American values.

Hollywood bred an interesting form of anti-semitism.

How did that anti-semitism play itself out? It was during the period of the Hollywood blacklist in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The blacklist targeted alleged Communists in the entertainment industry. Many of them were Jewish.

Kirk Douglas broke the blacklist. He hired Dalton Trumbo, who had been a victim of the blacklist, as the writer for Spartacus. At the time, Douglas was warned: if you do this, you will be kissing goodbye to your career.

In that way, Douglas was a moral hero, and an American hero.

But, how did Kirk Douglas become a Jewish hero?

In February 1991, Douglas was riding in a helicopter, and he was injured in a collision between the helicopter and a small plane. Two other people were also injured; two people on the plane were killed.

When we confront our own fragility and our own mortality, it lifts our lives above the mundane. It sends us on a search for meaning.

Kirk Douglas realized that he already had a great spiritual resource in his hands – his Jewish identity. Kirk Douglas turned — and returned — to Judaism with great vigor and with great enthusiasm.

And, it gets better — because Kirk Douglas bequeathed that search for meaning in Judaism to his son, Michael Douglas.

Douglas and his wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, have a son, Dylan. Dylan was curious about his claim to Jewish identity. He received a Jewish education. And when it was time for Dylan to become bar mitzvah, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones took him to Israel for the ceremony.

Douglas received the 2015 Genesis Prize, which honors “exceptional people whose values and achievements will inspire the next generation of Jews.” Last year, Michael Douglas addressed the URJ Biennial on his search for Jewish meaning in his life.

Michael Douglas has walked in the path of his son. He has walked in the path of his father. He has sought meaning in Judaism.

All this — despite the fact that, according to Jewish law, Jewish-father-gentile-mother Michael Douglas is not Jewish. And neither is Dylan Douglas.

To quote this week’s Torah portion: there is a ladder that connects heaven and earth.

God wants us to climb the ladder, rung by rung.

Kirk Douglas, may you live to be 120!