Kirk Douglas played the revolutionary leader Spartacus in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.
The film dramatizes the historical slave revolt against the Roman Republic, commonly known as the Third Servile War. Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator, leads escaped enslaved people in an uprising that challenges Rome’s military power.
Douglas also served as an executive producer and helped bring the project to the screen after disagreements involving its production. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted in Hollywood and received prominent credit after the film’s release.
The historical Spartacus lived in the first century BCE, while the film takes considerable dramatic liberties. Laurence Olivier played the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus, the principal opponent of Douglas’s character.