Melvyn Douglas.

Only nine actors have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, and Melvyn Douglas is one of them. The others are Thomas Mitchell, Paul Scofield, Jack Albertson, Jason Robards, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Geoffrey Rush, and Christopher Plummer.

Douglas was the son of Lena Priscilla Shackelford and Edouard Gregory Hesselberg. His father, a Jewish emigrant from Riga, Latvia, was a prominent concert pianist and composer who taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. His mother descended from Mayflower passengers and wanted him to study law.

He did not attend the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony in 1980, where he won Best Supporting Actor for Being There, because he could not bear competing against eight-year-old Justin Henry.

He is the grandfather of actress Illeana Douglas.

In 1967, he became the fifth performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting: Oscar for Hud 1963 and Being There 1979, Tony for The Best Man 1960, and Emmy for Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night 1967.

Gore Vidal, who wrote the play The Best Man, remarked that Douglas would have made a fine President in real life.

Douglas and Edward G. Robinson bid $3,200 for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fedora hat at a 1941 auction to benefit the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Douglas’s liberal activism led to accusations of being a Communist during the McCarthy era, and his wife Helen was defeated in a Senate race by Richard Nixon, who called her The Pink Lady. President Kennedy later appointed her Treasurer of the United States.

On August 5, 2019, Turner Classic Movies honored Douglas with a day of his film work during Summer Under the Stars.

He had six grandchildren when he died.

He won the 1960 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for The Best Man.

British broadcaster Melvyn Bragg was named after Douglas by his mother.

Douglas was sworn in as chief of the Arts Council, Office of Civilian Defense in Washington, D.C. on February 7, 1942.