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My Stroke of Luck
By Kirk Douglas
William Morrow &Co.
196 pp $22.95

If there were such a thing as a Hollywood peerage, Kirk Douglas would occupy a position somewhere near the top. In a career that spanned six decades, Douglas starred in 83 movies, including classics like Spartacus, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Lust for Life, as well as nine plays. At age 80, the veteran actor had earned the right to rest on his laurels. He and his wife, Anne, were healthy and active; they had a busy social life and enjoyed playing golf and tennis.

Then, in 1996, Douglas had a stroke, and everything changed. In his book, My Stroke of Luck, Douglas describes his stroke and its aftermath: his initial shock and depression, the slow, excruciating process of recovery -- and all the things he learned along the way.

The stroke left one side of Douglas' face paralyzed. He tried to speak and couldn't do so. At first the actor was too frightened and discouraged to even get out of bed. "I am an 80-year-old man with a stroke," he recalls thinking shortly after he came home from the hospital. "I'm an actor, and I can't talk. Is this THE END? I was tired of being a big, strong, tough guy. I began to cry. The room seemed to get darker and a big black cloud engulfed me. I cried and cried until my pillow became wet with my tears... "

For a time, Douglas seriously considered suicide. But slowly, over time, with a lot of speech therapy and hard work, he regained some of his speech, as well as his self-confidence and appetite for life.

Readers can commiserate when Douglas talks openly about his depression. But at times, his sense of entitlement verges on the comical. He is indignant, for example, to find himself the victim of a stroke. At 80, some seniors are already struggling with even more debilitating illnesses, but Douglas is outraged. He recalls his reaction upon hearing the diagnosis: "What the hell are they talking about? A stroke!... Strokes are for elderly people, with slurred speech, moving about in walkers or wheelchairs. I was only 80; how can a stroke happen to me?" Throughout the book, he casually refers to a veritable cavalry of servants who attend him in his Beverly Hills mansion. The reader is tempted to ask what Kirk Douglas could possibly have in common with your average stroke patient.

Still, you have to give him credit. He wrote the book out of a genuine desire to help other stroke victims, to reach out and offer them hope. And Douglas is frank and honest in describing how diminished, humiliated, and very, very vulnerable he felt after his stroke.

As a legendary tough guy ("I've made a career of playing sons of bitches," Douglas once observed), his frankness and self-deprecation are all the more laudable. Several months after his stroke, for example, Douglas was scheduled to attend the Academy Awards ceremony to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. The idea of going on national television and not being able to talk coherently filled him with terror. But he didn't back out. Instead, he reminded himself of the lessons he'd learned from his speech therapist: Pause. Breathe. Swallow. Articulate. He describes uttering the first tentative words, the enthusiastic reaction of the crowd, and his own simple joy at being understood.

In addition, much of the book is devoted to "Little Heroes" who served as his inspiration, including Michael J. Fox, Christopher Reeve, who recently passed away, and the late Dudley Moore, all of whom publicly talked about their disabilities and tried to help others in the process. And Douglas walks the walk: After his stroke, he and his wife established a unit for Alzheimer's disease at the Motion Picture Home. They are active in philanthropic projects around the world, and Douglas is a goodwill ambassador for the US Department of State and France's Légion d'Honneur.

Douglas even starred in a movie, Diamonds, in which he played a stroke victim, a role that he feels helped bring the condition to public attention. "You see, a stroke is [an event] that people often hide," Douglas writes. "They feel guilty, embarrassed, humiliated. When they talk, they feel that people look at them as if they are stupid. Diamonds helped to bring this illness out in the open; people began to talk more about strokes. I answered the many letters and calls I received from victims and their families."

Of course, there is plenty to find fault with in My Stroke of Luck, if one judges it from a traditional critical perspective. The writing is sloppy, the points vague and undeveloped, the advice simplistic. Most of his references to women are, to put it kindly, anachronistic. Nor is Douglas' advice particularly profound or original. He ends the book with what he calls "My Operator's Manual," which includes gems like "When things go bad, always remember it could be worse" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

And there is something too neat about the way his stroke has been packaged and presented. As the title of the book implies, Douglas ends up viewing his stroke as something of a gift: "My stroke taught me so much, and for all that it stole, it gave me even more. In the process of healing, my life has changed for the better."

One may admire the grit behind those words, and certainly it echoes the tone of much of the current writing by cancer survivors ("My experience has made me a better person"). Douglas' story also reflects a familiar Hollywood formula: Our hero encounters adversity and is brought low, then emerges stronger on the other side. Kirk Douglas suffered a relatively minor stroke, one that left him able to walk, travel, and play golf, so it may have been easier for him to see the stroke as a valuable learning experience.

But what about the thousands of people left horribly disabled by stroke each year? And the many families who have lost a loved one to stroke? Those who live each day in the shadow of a disabling stroke -- either their own or a family member's -- shouldn't feel obligated to consider themselves lucky at all.

Still, Douglas' central message -- that victims of physical disability should reach beyond themselves and help others -- is life-affirming and generous. Perhaps as a role model, Douglas' larger-than-life stature is an asset. It demonstrates that even the rich and famous are humbled by physical failure, and that they must endure the same struggles as the rest of us to put their lives back together.

-- Connie Matthiessen is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

First published March 14, 2002
Last updated October 13, 2008
Copyright © 2002 Consumer Health Interactive