Actor Kirk Douglas dead at 103
“Kirk’s life was well-lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come.
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas, the cleft-chinned movie star who fought gladiators, cowboys and boxers on the screen and the Hollywood establishment, died on Wednesday at the age of 103, his son Michael Douglas has announced.
Douglas was a Hollywood legend who starred in Spartacus, Gunfight at the OK Coral, Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life in a long cinematic career.
His death was announced by his son on social media and to People magazine on Thursday morning (Australian time).
“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” Michael Douglas wrote.
“To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the Golden Age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to.”
“Kirk’s life was well-lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come, and a history as a renowned philanthropist who worked to aid the public and bring peace to the planet,” Michael added, saying he was “so proud” to be his father’s son.
Douglas was the son of Jewish migrants from Russia, and he and his six sisters had poverty-stricken upbringings.
He made his film debut in 1946, in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers with Barbara Stanwyck. His breakthrough came in Champion (1949), where he played an unscrupulous boxing hero and earned first Oscars nomination for Best Actor.
He made more than 90 movies in a career that stretched across seven decades, and films such as Spartacus and The Vikings made him one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1950s and ’60s.
He also played a major role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist – actors, directors and writers who were shunned professionally because of links to the communist movement in the 1950s. Douglas said he was more proud of that than any film he made.
He is survived by his second wife Anne and his four sons, Michael, Joel, Peter and Eric.
