Multiple Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of the finest actors ever produced by the United States. In addition to his two Oscars, he also won a Tony Award and an Emmy. Douglas would enjoy cinema immortality alone as the man who made Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy "Ninotchka", but he was much, much more.

He was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901 in Macon, Georgia to a Russian-Jewish immigrant father and a mother of Scots heritage (thus, the stage name "Douglas"). His father was a concert pianist who supported the his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn Douglas dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

He made his Broadway debut in the drama "A Free Soul" at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster that would later make Clark Gable's career when the play was adapted to the screen. "A Free Soul" was a modest success, running for 100 performances, but his next three plays were flops; "Back Here" and "Now-a-Days" each lasted one week, while "Recapture" lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, "Tonight or Never," which opened on November 18, 1930 at legendary producer David Belasco's theater: not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years, his "Tonight or Never" co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.

The movies came a-calling' and he had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films in 1932, He first appeared opposite his future "Ninotchka" co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's "As You Desire Me," proving himself as a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema's greatest star. In the Hollywood way, this was balanced by his appearance in the horror film "The Vampire Bat." However, the leading man won out, and that's how he first came to fame in the 1930's in such films as "She Married Her Boss" and Garbo's final film, "Two Faced Woman" (1941). Douglas could play both straight drama and light comedy.

Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-communist left in the late 1930 and early '40s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944 for the first of three terms.

The late 1940s brought the House Un-American Activities Committee to Hollywood, which sowed the seeds of the McCarthyism that would rack Hollywood and America in the 1950s. In 1950, Gahagan Douglas ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, the Red-bating Congresman from Whittier Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse Gahagan Douglas of being a communist, he did charge her with being soft on communism due to her opposition to H.U.A.C. Nixon tarred her as a "fellow traveler" of communists, a "pinko" who was "pink right down to her underwear." Gahagan Doyglas was defeated by the man she was the first to call "Tricky Dicky" because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics.

The Douglases, like their friend Ronald Reagan and Edward G. Robinson, were liberal Democrats, supporters of 'Franklin D. Roosevelt' and his New Deal, a legacy that increasingly was under attack by the right after World War II. They were NOT fellow-travelers, as Douglas had been an active anti-communist. He was someone the communists despised.

After returning to films after the War, Douglas' screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, proving very effective as a second lead in such films as "The Sea of Grass" (Elia Kazan's directorial debut) and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he - along with fellow liberals Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) - were "gray-listed." (They weren't explicitly black-listed, they just weren't offered any work.)

After appearing in six films in the immediate post-war period of 1947-49, he appeared in just two more - supporting roles at R.K.O. in 1951 - until he reappeared a decade later in the Englishman Peter Ustinov's "Billy Budd" in 1962. In the meantime, Douglas did play the eponymous private detective "Steve Randall" in the TV series of that name in the 1952-53 season for the doomed DuMont network (it failed in '53) and, following the example of his old friend Ronald Reagan in his stint on "General Electric Theater," appeared as the host of the western omnibus TV series "Frontier Justice" in 1959. Throughout the 1950s, he had roles on the omnibus drama show-cases such as "Playhouse 90" (he even appeared on Reagan's "G.E. Theater.")

And there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and '50s, including an appearance in a notable 1959 flop when he made his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein's "Juno." The musical, based on Sean O'Casey's play " Juno and the Paycock" closed in less than three weeks. He was much luckier in his next trip to the post: Douglas won a "Tony" for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal.

In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the black and gray lists went into eclipse. J.F.K., who was married to Vidal's step-sister Jackie Kennedy, would appoint Helen Gahagan Douglas Treasurer of the United States. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, former liberal activist and two-term Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan was in the process of completing his evolution into a right-wing Republican. Reagan and Douglas' friendship lapsed. After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan had begun to believe in the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the "G.E. Theater."

Douglas' own evolution into a premier character actor was complete by the early '60s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen Douglas, make him richer, and he returned to film a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the gray-list, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman's father in "Hud" (1963). Other films in which he shone were Paddy Chayefsky's "The Americanization of Emily" (1965), George Schaefer's 1967 TV-movie "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, for which he won a Best Actor Emmy, and "The Candidate," in which he played Robert Redford's father). It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman's father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in "I Never Sang for My Father" (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late '70s, appearing in "The Sedution of Joe Tynan" (1979), "Being There" (1979) and "Ghost Story" (1979). He won his second Oscar for "Being There."

Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn Douglas followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.
In 1967, he became the fifth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscar: Best Supporting Actor, 'Hud' (1963) & Best Supporting Actor, 'Being There' (1979), Tony: Best Actor-Play, 'The Best Man' (1960), and Emmy: Best Actor-Drama, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' (1967). Grandfather of Illeana Douglas. His son Peter was born in 1933. His daughter Mary Helen was born in 1938. Won Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "The Best Man." According to the March 31, 1941 issue of 'Time' magazine, Douglas and Edward G. Robinson bid $3,200 for the fedora hat that Franklin D. Roosevelt had worn during his three successful campaigns for the Presidency. They acquired the hat at a special Hollywood auction to benefit the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Both Robinson and Douglas were identified as "loyal Democrats." Douglas was extremely active in liberal causes in the 1930s and '40s, which opened him up to charges of being a "Fellow traveler" during the McCarthyite period. Douglas' wife, Helen Gahagan Douglas would later serve as U.S. Representative (Democrat-California) and be defeated in her 1950 bid for the U.S. Senate by Republican Congressman Richard Nixon, who dubbed her the "pink lady" for her leftist leanings. (President John F. Kennedy would appoint her Treasurer of the United States in 1961.) About Democrat-turned-Republican Ronald Reagan), Douglas said after he was elected President of the United States in 1980 that his former friend (and former liberal Democrat) had begun to believe in the speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the star of a Western TV series sponsored by GE.