BAR MITZVAH; KIRK DOUGLAS ENJOYING SPIRITUAL, CAREER REBIRTHS IN HIS 8TH DECADE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Kirk Douglas has been brushing up on his Hebrew and rehearsing a speech that proclaims his entrance into manhood. Yes, Douglas is celebrating his bar mitzvah today, 70 years after his first rite of passage.

For the screen veteran, the ceremony, held on his 83rd birthday, is more than a solemn reflection on a good life blessed by family, friends and professional success. It is symbolic of rebirth.

Douglas is making his film comeback this week as the star of ``Diamonds,'' about a former boxer, Harry Agensky, who hits the road with his son (Dan Aykroyd) and grandson (Corbin Allred) in search of some diamonds a Reno mobster stashed for him decades earlier as a payoff for throwing a fight.

``In Judaism, when you're 13 years old, you have a confirmation called bar mitzvah. Then you say, `Boy, I've had it,' and you forget being a Jew,'' he said. ``This birthday I'll be 83 years old, and 70 years after my first bar mitzvah I will have my second bar mitzvah. That means that I will assume that I am now 13 years old again, and I will embark on a new career.''

Only he's not 13. He is an octogenarian dealing with the aftermath of a stroke nearly four years ago that left his speech slurred. The stroke hit him about five years after he was seriously injured in a helicopter crash.

At first glance, Douglas looks his age. But then you can't help but notice the straight posture, the firmness of the handshake, the smacking sound a fist makes in the other palm when he emphasizes a point. Watch closer to see the gleam in his eyes as he recalls first spotting Lauren Bacall (who plays a bordello madam in ``Diamonds'') when she was just 16 and he 22.

But Douglas doesn't dwell on the past, instead he focuses on what's to come. If you want to be on his good side, don't call him a ``movie legend.''

``I'm not complimented (by that term), because I think a legend involves the past, and I'd like to think that, with my stroke, I'm now embarking on a new career.''

The screenplay had been written for an Alzheimer's patient when producer Patricia Green of Total Film Group first brought it to Douglas nearly two years ago.

``I looked at the script and thought, `Gee, I could do this movie.' I know about Alzheimer's because my wife and I have given the Alzheimer unit (to the Motion Picture and Television Fund's retirement home in Woodland Hills),'' he said.

``I said, `Wait, this guy should have a stroke, because, by coincidence, I have had a stroke,' so we shaped it, and I was able to inject lots of my own personal feelings, which gave it authenticity.

``I didn't want to make a documentary. I wanted to make a movie that could make you laugh, make you cry, move you in some way - that's what a movie is supposed to do.''

Among his contributions to the film are a lot of Harry Agensky's dialogue when he talks about the trials of stroke recovery, the idea that his mind moves at a brisk pace that his speech cannot match.

``The terrible thing about a stroke is the depression,'' he said. ``That last of the screenplay I wrote myself. What I told Bacall on the bed is true of how I felt. You want to cry and get out of everything, but then you have to motivate yourself or, in my case, my wife said, `Get your ass out of bed.'

``The most important thing is humor, to be able to laugh at yourself, to be able to have other people laugh at you,'' he said. ``I have often told people that before my stroke I was going to do a picture with my son Michael. Then I had my stroke, and Michael said, `Don't worry, Dad, you just work with a speech therapist, then we'll do the movie.' I was mad and I said, `Michael, why don't you work with my speech therapist, and when you talk like I talk, we'll do the movie.' He thought that was very funny.''

The elder and younger Douglases have yet to co-star together on the screen - still looking for the right project, Kirk says - but last month they filmed a promotional TV spot for the NFL.

Douglas, with 82 films under his belt, has seen a lot of changes in how Hollywood works, but he seems to have maintained the same standards he adopted when he made his film debut in 1946 with ``The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.''

Patricia Green said Douglas chose not to hire the stable of assistants who aid most film stars these days, instead bringing his wife, Anne, to Reno for just the first few days of the shoot. The producer said despite his years, Douglas worked hard without complaint.

Aykroyd said Douglas even did his own stunt work in an alley scene when the three take on a mugger played by screenwriter Allan Aaron Katz.

``He was swinging. There was no stand-in. That was Kirk,'' Aykroyd said. ``He laced into the guy. I did a double take. He can still move.''

Green said, ``He was there every day until the work was done. He never left early because he was tired.

``His attitude enriched the movie and our lives.''

Director John Asher, just 27 when the movie was made last year, recalled how, on the first day of shooting, Douglas boosted the filmmaker's self-esteem by listening to a direction, then simply replying, ``Yes, sir.''

``My legs went numb, and I about passed out,'' Asher said, noting the gesture seemed to encourage others to look up to this greenhorn young enough to be the star's grandson.

Douglas has a different view of the conversation's meaning. ``Look how pathetic that is, that a response like `yes, sir' - the right thing to say - means so much to him. He was the director.''

Douglas, at 83, is busier than many middle-age Hollywood stars. He has tentative plans to appear in a screen remake of Tennessee Williams' ``The Night of the Iguana,'' another potential film job in the works, and a possible guest role on the TV series ``Touched by an Angel.''

He has written two autobiographies, three novels and two children's books, the latest being the newly published ``Young Heroes of the Bible,'' aimed at making Old Testament figures such as Moses and Abraham more approachable for kids. He plans to write another children's book.

And, although his words are slow and deliberate, he often gives speeches about stroke survival, or his charitable foundation's projects, such as improving hundreds of run-down playgrounds at Los Angeles schools.

In ``Diamonds,'' Harry Agensky looks at photos of the strapping young man in the boxing ring (actually stills from Douglas' 1949 film ``Champion'') and says mournfully, ``I miss him.''

But Douglas says he does not feel sad that he is no longer the muscle-bound young man of ``Spartacus.''

``I think life goes on. I don't look back too much. I forced myself to look back when I wrote `The Ragman's Son' to take inventory.

``I like to think I'm a young actor just starting out in my new career - with a British accent.''

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3 Photos

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) Stronger than `Diamonds'

At 83, Kirk Douglas has new film, second bar mitzvah

(2) no caption (Kirk Douglas)

(3) Director John Asher, left, with Kirk Douglas on the set of ``Diamonds.'' The 83-year-old star even did some of his own stunt work.