Jews without mitzvos

https://www.quora.com/Which-celebrities-turned-into-jerks-after-becoming-famous

Which celebrities turned into jerks after becoming famous?

Here’s an interesting candidate…

Kirk Douglas. He broke into Hollywood after World War II, and had this exchange with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper after his movie “Champion” (seen above) made a splash:

Hedda: Now that you’ve got a big hit, you’ve become a real son of a bitch.

Kirk: You’re wrong, Hedda. I was always a son of a bitch. You just never noticed before.

Mr. Douglas was born angry. Or at least, that’s what he says …

There was an awful lot of rage churning around inside me, rage that I was afraid to reveal because there was so much more of it, and so much stronger, in my father.

Kirk Douglas’s father was a tough, illiterate, Russian-Jewish immigrant who was distant from his kids. Kirk D., well aware of his family’s meager resources, worked a series of menial jobs to support himself in college. The anger he felt toward his situation, his father, and society at large manifested itself in different ways. 

After college, Kirk went on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he (unsurprisingly?) bore a grudge against his acting instructor for never casting him as an owl in an acting exercise. But his anger and focused drive carried him a long way. After brief work on Broadway, he made his way to Hollywood, where co-star Robert Mitchum (no slouch in the “difficult” department) found him over-bearing on the set of Out of the Past. And Jane Greer, Past’s femme fatale, had a few issues:

Douglas and Jane Greer

Kirk Douglas … bruised my arms grabbing me. And my face was roundly slapped. How he did Champion without maiming his partner is a miracle. …

By 1950 Douglas was a front-rank movie star. He started his own production company, top-lined blockbusters in various genres, philandered robustly on two wives. Along the way he acknowledged:

I’m probably the most disliked actor in Hollywood. And I feel pretty good about it. Because that’s me, I was born aggressive, and I guess I’ll die aggressive.

Few of his peers would have disagreed. As Kirk’s longtime co-star Burt Lancaster noted at a tribute to Douglas at the Academy of the Dramatic Arts:

Kirk would be the first person to tell you he’s a very difficult man. And I would be the second.

Whatever sins you pile on Kirk Douglas, pretending to be someone he wasn’t couldn’t be considered one of them.