It’s been three months since the legendary actor Kirk Douglas passed away at the age of 103. Now, his son Michael Douglas and daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones are speaking out to pay a touching tribute to him.
“There wasn’t anyone like him,” Michael told Entertainment Tonight of his father. “There’s another generation, that was the great generation, post-World War II … and Dad was one of kind.”
Michael and his wife Catherine are currently working on a fundraiser called “We All Play Our Part: A Benefit for MPTF,” referring to the Motion Picture & Television Fund. The benefits will go to its COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.
When asked what his father would think of his efforts, Michael said he would be “very happy.”
“I know he takes particular pride — not so much in whatever I worked with and I’m doing with the Motion Picture Television Fund — but I know he loves Catherine [and] the work that she’s doing,” Michael said. “He always used to tease me. We would call him up and he would be like, ‘Enough with you, let me talk to your wife.’ He was a flirt until the very end.”
Catherine agreed with her husband about his father.
“Oh yes, he’s a great flirt,” Catherine said. “He crosses our minds every day. But for me, during this time of, ‘OK, we are all locked down, what do you do?’ It’s so easy to go into a procrastination vibe. And Kirk, he went through so much from a helicopter crash to a stroke and then just age, being alone and what does he do with this time.”
“And what was so admirable about him was he was always involved with courage events, he wrote 11 books, he worked with his rabbi, he worked with his philanthropic endeavors and he always created something to do and he taught me that lesson,” she added. “He always said to us, ‘Write a book, do something else. What are you doing?’ And he’d be working on something right now, I’m sure.”
Kirk was a World War II veteran who survived a helicopter crash, a stroke, and two knee replacements while also starring in 80 movies. There will never be another star like him, and he is dearly missed!
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