Actor Kirk Douglas dies at 103

LOS ANGELES (AP/WTVO) — Kirk Douglas, the muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films and helped fatally weaken the Hollywood blacklist, has died at 103, People magazine reported Wednesday.

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

Kirk Douglas was nominated three times for Oscars — for “Champion,” “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Lust for Life.” He later received an honorary award for “50 years as a creative and moral force” in the movie industry.

He starred in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), which became Universal Studio’s biggest moneymaker for that decade.

Douglas suffered a severe stroke in 1996 but continued to work.

His son Michael won Oscars as producer for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and as actor for “Wall Street.”

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