“My father could never keep a secret. Anne was just the opposite,” Michael Douglas said in a statement released by the family. “That’s why when I read their co-authored book, `Kirk and Anne,’ in which she talked about her early life in Germany; her war years in occupied Paris; her career before she met my father; she also included their private correspondence, which gave me new insights into their courtship and marriage.
Kirk Douglas, the Hollywood legend who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films, died in February 2020 at 103.
He married Anne Buydens in 1954 after they met in Paris while he was filming “Act of Love” and she was doing publicity. They had two sons, Peter, a producer, and Eric, an actor.
“Anne was more than a stepmother, and never `wicked.’ She brought out the best in all of us, especially our father. Dad would never have had the career he did without Anne’s support and partnership. Catherine and I and the children adored her. She will always be in our hearts.”
Anne Douglas was married to legendary actor Kirk Douglas for more than 60 years, until his death last year. The couple originally wed in Las Vegas in 1954, but they had a more lavish ceremony when they renewed their vows 50 years later, in 2004.
They had two children together, Peter and Eric. Kirk Douglas had two children from his previous marriage to Diana Dill — Michael and Joel.
“I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t married Anne. I might not have survived without her business acumen and her finely-honed instincts,” Kirk Douglas once said.
In 2017 the couple published “Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter, and a Lifetime in Hollywood.”
The Douglas Foundation, which Anne and her husband co-founded, has donated millions to a wide range of institutions, from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
She was an avid philanthropist, co-founding the Cedars-Sinai Research for Women’s Cancers. She and her husband also led a massive campaign to refurbish playgrounds at Los Angeles Unified School District campuses, renovating more than 400 and always personally attending dedication ceremonies when they opened.
She also funded the Anne Douglas Center for Women at the Los Angeles Mission downtown, and the Douglas Foundation has contributed more than $118 million to a variety of causes, including the Motion Picture and Television Home’s Alzheimers and dementia unit, Sinai Temple’s Kirk and Anne Douglas Childhood Center and St. Lawrence University’s Kirk Douglas scholarships for minority students.
Michael Douglas said his stepmother “will always be in our hearts.”
