Kirk Douglas Hollywood Legend at 92

 LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — A couple of years ago, Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas declared that it was time to undertake “an audit of my life.” Now, at the age of 92, he’s going public with the results.

Kirk Douglas, now 92, recently starred in a one-man show about his life and work.

Kirk Douglas, now 92, recently starred in a one-man show about his life and work.

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Douglas takes an unsparing look at his personal life and career in his one-man show, “Before I Forget,” which just completed its run at a theater that bears his name in Culver City, California.

Over the course of the 1½-hour show, he delved into his brushes with death (a helicopter-plane collision that claimed two lives, his suicidal thoughts after a stroke in 1994); the death of his youngest son, Eric (from an accidental drug overdose in 2004); his troubled relationship with a father who could never express his love for him; and his key role in smashing the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s.

Douglas plans to turn the show into a TV special and DVD, with the proceeds benefiting the Motion Picture and Television Home, where he endowed a wing named for his father, Harry.

He invited CNN to his home in Beverly Hills to discuss his show and what he’s learned about himself over the course of a life that began in 1916 in Amsterdam, New York, as Issur Danielovitch. Video Watch Douglas reflect on his life »

Below is an edited version of his remarks.

Kirk Douglas: All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, “Who am I?” And I wrote my first book to deal with that, “The Ragman’s Son.”

Then the next thing that happened: I was in a helicopter crash. We crashed into a small plane with two young people who were killed instantly. I fell to the ground, and I said, “Why?” I tried to find God, so I wrote a book, “Climbing the Mountain.” Then the worst accident in my life happened with a tingling across my cheek, and then it developed into a stroke, and I couldn’t talk, and an actor who can’t talk is a big problem. But then I wrote the book “My Stroke of Luck” that helped me and helped a lot of other people. That was gratifying.

After that, here I was, 92 years old, impediment in my speech, and was reflecting on my life, and people thought I would write another book, and I said no, I’m going to do a one-man show. My friends laughed; they thought it was a joke, but I did it.

…very inspiring, a good man who falls down, again and again, picks himself up, and keeps going.