Obituary: Kirk Douglas

Kirk in his younger days, long long long ago

This has just been reported in the last couple of hours, but noted actor Kirk Douglas, a mere 103, has died.  He had some 92 acting credits, starting in the 1940s, which makes him one of the very last of that era, and he acted well into his old age.

At this age, you would expect he would die of natural causes.



He was survived by his second wife, to whom he was married for 65 years, and three sons including actor Michael, who frankly looked older than his dad thanks to battling cancer.

When I was a young girl, I always got him mixed up with his sometime co-star, Burt Lancaster, even though the two men looked nothing alike.

I don't have a whole lot to write about when it comes to him.  He was a good actor who seldom gave a bad performance.

Fun fact is he was known as "Izzy." It makes sense, as his birth name was Issur Danielovitch Demsky, which is hardly marquee material.

The actor, known as Izzy, had some 40 jobs growing up in Amsterdam, N.Y., including newsboy, before acting in high school plays sent him on the course that would eventually make him a household name. He studied at Manhattan’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts alongside classmate Lauren Bacall, who later helped get him a screen test that led to his first movie role, opposite Barbara Stanwyck, in 1946’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

Another Academy classmate was Diana Dill, to whom Douglas would be married from 1943 until their 1951 divorce. She is the mother of two of Douglas’s sons, Michael, born in 1944, and Joel, born in 1947.

Heading a Hollywood family, though, was often as difficult as being in one. As Michael has said on several occasions, including during his 1987 Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech for Wall Street, growing up under so large a shadow as Douglas’s was not always easy.

It's tough having a legendary actor as a dad.

Another fun fact:  His second wife, Anne Buydens, turned 100 last year.  It is extremely rare for a married couple to both live to 100 or more while still married.  In the case of Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, Bob lived to be 100, but his wife wasn't 100 at the time of his death.  She did make it to the age of 102 when she passed away in 2011.