Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, Danish and English. His reputation, which was ...
Use of mirrors to break up the surface of the screen.
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In Sirk's own words, his films dealt with characters who want to revisit a bygone youth.
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Domestic and Middle America commonly depicted in his films
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Christmas is a recurring theme in his films
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Quote
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[on Clark Gable]: That face of a tomcat - what did people see in it?
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[interview in 1978]: By temperament, I'm a pessimist.
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I certainly believe that happiness exists, if only by the simple fact that it can be destroyed.
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[on art] This is the dialectic-there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.
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Fact
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Although Sirk made no more Hollywood films after his greatest success, "Imitation Of Life", in 1959, he did not retire from film-making immediately, as is sometimes reported. After "Imitation" was released, he was named as director of a projected film about Suzanne Valadon, the mother of the artist Maurice Utrillo, to star Lana Turner; it was never made. He was also mentioned (in 1962) in connection with a proposed remake of "Madame X", also to star Turner. However, the project was postponed and when Turner finally made the film in 1966, her director was David Lowell Rich.
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Was of Danish heritage but grew up in Germany.
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In Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), inside of the movie-homage diner "Jack Rabbit Slim's" one of the characters orders a "Douglas Sirk Steak" from the menu.
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Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 779-782. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
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In 1980 the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival wanted him to be President of the Jury. The telegram sent to their Hollywood office was to read, "Request Douglas Sirk for jury". However, a typo and an extra comma resulted in it reading, "Request Douglas, Kirk for jury". Kirk Douglas became the President of the 1980 jury.
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