Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas, dies aged 103

United States (US) silver screen legend Kirk Douglas, the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood’s biggest-ever stars, has died, his family said Wednesday. He was 103. One of the last survivors of the golden age of cinema, Douglas was renowned for the macho and not-always-likeable tough guy roles he took on in around 90 movies over a six-decade career.

“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” his son, movie star Michael Douglas, said in a statement posted to Facebook. “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.”

His production company, Bryna Productions, was instrumental in developing what would arguably prove to be his two greatest pictures – Paths of Glory and Spartacus, both directed by Stanley Kubrick. Douglas was Oscar-nominated three times – for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust For Life – but had to be content with the honorary award he was eventually given in 1995. In 1981 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by his friend Jimmy Carter. Vanguard