Kirk Douglas celebrates 101st birthday
Michael Douglas may have starred in “Last Vegas,” but it’s his father, Kirk, who’s the last of his kind.
The senior Douglas turns 101 Saturday, making him the oldest surviving leading man of the silver screen’s golden age. (Olivia de Havilland has him beat by a few months, having turned 101 on July 1.) Douglas, pictured as adventurous whaler Ned Land in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” battles a giant squid (not to mention Nautilus commander Capt. Nemo) and croons the sea chantey “A Whale of a Tale” in that 1954 film.
But Douglas’ whale of a tale wasn’t confined to reel life. While filming “20,000 Leagues,” Douglas and publicist Anne Buydens “flew up to Las Vegas after work on Saturday to get married, took in Sinatra at the Sahara, and flew back to L.A. the next night,” he recalled in a 2014 Huffington Post article. (They’re still married, 63 years later.) And Douglas sang “Whale of a Tale” on screen again — alongside son Michael and grandson Cameron — in 2003’s aptly titled “It Runs in the Family.”
