Featured Film

Champion

Seduced by cheering crowds, money, and a succession of women, a boxer becomes more and more of a hero in public and a heel in private.

Champion (1949)

The film that made Kirk a star and gave him his first Oscar nomination. He turned down a grade-A MGM project to make this small, independent film about a stop-at-nothing boxer. “Decisions have to be based on your gut instinct. My gut instinct told me to do Champion.” Ragman’s Son, 146 Before the film came out, Kirk and his first wife, Diana Dill, Michael and Joel’s mother, separated and divorced.