In his heyday, Kirk Douglas was one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, and he was no stranger to chasing women. But he chose to spend most of his life with his wife of 65 years, Anne Douglas, née Buydens. After passing away at the age of 103 on Feb. 5, 2020, Kirk left Anne a widow. Over one year following his death, Anne passed away at her home in Beverly Hills on April 29, 2021, at the age of 102.
Kirk’s son, Michael, announced his passing in a statement to People. He said his late dad 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.”
Michael continued:
“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.”
Kirk and Anne had an excellent relationship despite their many challenges, and they stuck together through it all in their almost seven decades of marriage. While they were married, Kirk was known for his dalliances and was romantically linked to Rita Hayworth, Patricia Neal, and Christina Crawford. However, Anne forgave him each time.
In their 2017 book, Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter and a Lifetime in Hollywood, which they co-authored, Anne revealed why she could forgive him each time. “Kirk never tried to hide his dalliances from me,” she shared. “As a European, I understood it was unrealistic to expect total fidelity in a marriage.”
The love birds first met in 1953 on the Paris set of “Act of Love,” the two were involved with different people at the time. Anne was married to Albert Buydens for security reasons, while Kirk was already divorced from actress Diana Dill and secretly engaged to Italian actress Pier Angeli.
Kirk was immediately drawn to Anne. He wrote:
“This self-possessed beauty was very different from the women I had been involved with in Hollywood since Diana [his ex-wife] left me.”
Anne was a film publicist then and had been working as a location scout and assistant for director John Huston in 1952. In 1953, she had a three-year period where she worked as head of protocol for the Cannes Film Festival, where she scheduled parties and ensured they were filled with celebrities and media. Kirk offered her a job to be his assistant, but she vehemently turned him down, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
He also asked her on a date, but she refused. Anne’s behavior was unusual for Kirk, who was used to having ladies jump at the opportunity to date him, a huge movie star. Intending to take her to an expensive restaurant and impress her, Anne wrote that she replied:
“No, thank you, I think I’ll go home and make myself some scrambled eggs.”
Kirk became determined to win her heart then. However, he soon stopped trying to impress her and focused on building a friendly relationship. That was the beginning of their professional relationship, but their romantic one was yet to come.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk wrote:
“She finally agreed to work with me on a trial basis, making it clear our relationship would be strictly business.”
“With no romance in the picture, I stopped trying to impress Anne,” Kirk wrote in their book. “Instead, I stopped talking about myself and began to listen to her.”
This gesture, coupled with Kirk’s action at a charity gala where he willingly volunteered to scoop elephant dung at a circus despite being a movie star in a tuxedo, started to move Anne.
However, she had her reservations about getting involved with a Hollywood star. She had seen many examples of women who were left heartbroken once a movie wrapped.
Still, she decided to follow her heart, and after Kirk ended his engagement to Pier Angeli, she and Kirk got married in the spring of 1954. They said their vows in Las Vegas after a year of working together. Their son Peter Douglas was born a year later, followed by Eric Douglas, who was born in 1958. Anne also built a good relationship with Kirk’s ex-wife and was a great stepmother to her stepsons.
Meanwhile, Kirk and Anne’s romance didn’t stop after their wedding. They frequently wrote letters to each other whenever they were away, expressing their longing to be with the other person.
In their book, they shared one letter Kirk wrote to Anne in 1957 while he filmed “Paths of Glory.” It read:
“Darling, how is it that when I am away from you, such love for you overwhelms me at 2:30 in the morning — as it is now — I awake to write to you. How incomplete I seem without my family. How can a man live alone? To live just for yourself is to be dead. And yes, I welcome this parting from you to rekindle my awareness of how much you mean to me. The early hour brings out the poetic side of me.”
tably, Anne saved Kirk more than once in their marriage. He recounted,
“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. She saved me from financial ruin when she persisted in her distrust of my long-time lawyer and surrogate father, who indeed stole the fortune he told me I had.”
He continued:
“She saved my life when she refused to let me fly to New York on Mike Todd’s plane which crashed, killing everyone aboard. She gave me tough love when I had my stroke and thought I would never speak or work again. Anne is selfless, compassionate and loyal to a fault. She also has a wicked sense of humor and can make me laugh in English, French and German.”
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the devoted couple. In addition to Anne’s battle with breast cancer and Kirk’s struggle with depression after suffering a stroke, the couple suffered a tragic loss when their youngest son Eric, an actor and stand-up comedian, died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 46 in 2004.
Still, the couple stood strong beside each other. For their 50th wedding anniversary, Kirk lived up to his promise of going big on their celebrations together, surprising Anne with a huge and lavish wedding party that they never had. Kirk shared the secret to their long-lasting union in 2015 when he said, “We solve our disagreements with a kiss.”
Their love was incredibly strong, and Kirk summed it up the best in one of his letters to Anne:
“Always remember darling, I need you … for you, I hope to do wonderful things in life. This is it — you and me and our family forever!”
After making it to 100 together, now Anne and Kirk Douglas are reunited once more. Did you know about their six-decade-long marriage? Be sure to pass on this article to honor their incredible love story.
