Kirk Douglas as ON THE TOWN's Gabey? It Almost Happened!

One of the great actors of Hollywood's Golden Era, Kirk Douglas will forever be remembered for his portrayals of such legendary men as Spartacus, Ulysses and Vincent Van Gogh. But believe it or not, he was nearly one of the stars of the 1944 Broadway musical hit, ON THE TOWN.

As Douglas himself explains in a Huffington Post article titled, "Why I Felt Like A Failure When I Didn't Make It On Broadway," "George Abbott invited me to audition before Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for ON THE TOWN. I sang a corny old music hall song, 'I'm Red Hot Henry Brown (the hottest man in town),' and got the part."

The part was Gabey, the sailor whose quest for the illusive Miss Turnstiles sets the musical into frantic motion and who introduced the soon-to-become American standards, "Lucky To Be Me" and "Lonely Town."

But it wasn't to be.

"I was petrified and came down with a psychosomatic illness -- my voice got smaller and smaller as I rehearsed the songs, until it totally disappeared. And so did my big opportunity. John Battles replaced me, and my voice came back."

While his intense realism on the screen made him one of the movies' most sought-after leading men, Douglas' Broadway career, which began in 1941 when he played a singing telegram messenger in SPRING AGAIN, was somewhat less auspicious. But good reviews during the 1945 three month run of THE WIND IS NINETY granted him a call to Hollywood to play Barbara Stanwyck's alcoholic husband in THE STRANGE LOVES OF MARTHA IVERS.

But even after achieving screen stardom, Douglas was determined to have a hit on Broadway. He bought the stage rights to Ken Kesey's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and commissioned Dale Wasserman to turn it into a play. The above photo shows him on stage as Randle Patrick McMurphy opposite Joan Tetzel's Nurse Ratched. The 82-performance run was a disappointment, especially after the success of the 1975 Oscar-winning film.

"I finally found out how to get my name in lights - permanently," the star jokes. "Buy the theatre!"

Eleven years ago, the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City opened in a remodeled Art Deco movie house. The playhouse's namesake even performed his autobiographical one-man show there, BEFORE I FORGET, at age 92.

"For a second I flirted with bringing it to Broadway, but nonagenarian solo acts don't inspire long-range ticket sales."

Don't be so sure about that, Mr. Douglas.

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