Acting legend Kirk Douglas died from natural causes at his Hollywood home on Wednesday, Feb. 5.
Son Michael Douglas announced the passing of the ‘Spartacus’ star in a statement, which reads: “It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103.
“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 of us all 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 grandchildren, their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband.”
According to WENN.com, New York-born Kirk, real name Issur Danielovitch, started his acting career onstage in New York in 1940 before he enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
Following service in World War II, the son of Russian emigrants returned to the theater and then found fame on the big screen.
He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 1959 for his role in Champion and went on to become one of the most revered Hollywood icons of the 1960s and 1970s.
Douglas survived a helicopter crash in 1991 and a stroke in 1996. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and was also honored with France’s top award, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Considered one of the greatest movie stars of all time, Kirk was nominated for three Oscar awards but he never won.
He was finally presented with an honorary Oscar in 1995, a year before suffering a stroke.
