Three, being able to look at a good stock from a bad stock, which helps me to be honest with my clients.
|
Just like Melvin and my Dad preached to me.
|
I used to always laugh and say, "Well, my role models were Albert Einstein and Sandy Koufax."
|
Because those are my two biggest heroes.
|
But when you look at it they actually took a backseat to my dad and Melvin.
|
Melvin, like my dad, was a real good Jew.
|
And that means something to another Jew.
|
I mean, it's like when you're a Catholic and you meet someone who's a really good, devout Catholic, you look up to them.
|
Melvin was like that, a man of his beliefs.
|
So were a lot of my clients, which is why I loved them. I got to know some of my celebrity clients fairly well, too. Some better than others.
|
You know what? Kirk Douglas was one of them. He is a lot like Melvin. He doesn't hide anything. Kirk is a wonderful guy. I love Kirk.
|
He is what we Jews call "haimish."
|
It means he's a regular person.
|
He's thrilled about what happened in his life. Proud of who he is, but humble.
|
I knew Kirk well enough because I was with Kirk on many, many occasions. We spent time down in the desert together, time in Beverly Hills together with his family and his wife, Ann.
|
His son, Peter, and I were very, very close friends. We used to go out together all the time. As a joke for his birthday, I bought him a beret, a riding crop and a whip, because I used to call him "C.B." for Cecil B. DeMille.
|
Peter went on to do some movies. Peter's a good guy.
|
Kirk's other son, Michael, was older and I think he'd already done "Cuckoo's Nest." I didn't really get to know him.
|
When Kirk and I first got together, it was around 1976. And that came through my relationship with Anita May.
|
You know, when I first met the Douglases, I could have walked in and giggled and laughed and said, "Omigod, it's Kirk Douglas." Because he's a Hollywood legend. But I couldn't do that, because, you know why? I was looking at a really nice man. And you can't do that to a really nice man.
|
The value and the wonderful things that he had given me my whole life of going and seeing his movies, I could repay, not by gushing, but by trying to do the best job I could for him.
|
And I understood what it was like to be in my celebrity clients' profession, which often helped.
|
I was one of them, in a way. Certainly nothing like the stature of a Kirk
|
|