Kirk Douglas had three Oscar nominations and was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1996.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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LOS ANGELES • Once upon a time in Hollywood, Kirk Douglas was a giant.
One of the last superstars of Tinseltown's golden age of cinema and renowned for his intense performances in Spartacus (1960) and Paths Of Glory (1957), he died on Wednesday at 103.
The leading man, producer and director came to prominence in the late 1940s and never lost his popularity, taking on nearly 100 movies over a six-decade career that endured beyond a severe stroke in his later years.
His death at his family home in Beverly Hills was confirmed by his son Michael Douglas, an Oscar-winning actor and film-maker.
Tributes poured in from across Hollywood and around the world on social media, with many declaring "I am Spartacus" in a nod to Kirk Douglas' legendary role as a rebellious Roman slave.
Born Issur Danielovitch to Jewish-Russian immigrants in upstate New York in 1916, he began as a stage actor before serving in the United States Navy in World War II.
He graduated to movies in 1946 when Casablanca (1942) producer Hal Wallis signed him, and became a star for his role as a double-crossing and womanising boxer in Champion (1949).
His subsequent roles would often mirror his real-world, larger-than-life and intense persona, including a ruthless movie producer in The Bad And The Beautiful (1952) and tortured artist Vincent van Gogh in Lust For Life (1956).
Douglas told The New York Times in 1984 that he had "always been attracted to characters who are part scoundrel", adding: "I don't find virtue photogenic."
He was noted for his dedication to roles, training for months to play a boxer in Champion and learning to ride a horse and shoot in western Gunfight At The O.K. Corral (1957).
Douglas, who gathered three Oscar nominations, was granted a Lifetime Achievement statuette by the Academy in 1996 - just months after his stroke.
He is survived by second wife Anne Buydens, 100, and three sons.
"To me and my brothers Joel and Peter, he was simply dad; to Catherine (Zeta-Jones), a wonderful father-in-law; to his grandchildren and great-grandchild, their loving grandfather; and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband," said Michael Douglas.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
