Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas dies at 103
Hollywood acting legend Kirk Douglas has died aged 103, Daily Mail reports.
The Spartacus star died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He is survived by his wife of 65 years Anne Buydens and his three sons Michael, Joel, and Peter.
His son Michael Douglas, an acting icon in his own right, revealed the news of his father's death in an emotional statement to People magazine.
"It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,' he said.
"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.
"But to me and my brothers Joel and Peter he was simply Dad, to Catherine, a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband."
Douglas suffered a stroke back in 1996 that left him with slurred speech and damaged facial nerves but it didn't stop him attending the Academy Awards ceremony two weeks later to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.
He had been in relatively good health since his stroke.
Douglas was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood's biggest-ever stars.
The famed actor and producer, who was one of the last of Hollywood's Golden Age, made more than 90 movies in a career that stretched across seven decades.
He was renowned for the macho tough guy roles he took on.
Films such as Spartacus and The Vikings made him one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1950s and 60s.
He was nominated three times for the best actor Oscar in 1949 for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful in 1953 and Lust for Life in 1957.
Douglas never received an Academy Award for an individual film but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar in 1996 for his role as a creative and moral force in the movie industry.
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