Diana Douglas, the mother of Academy Award-winner Michael Douglas and the first wife of actor Kirk Douglas, has died of cancer. She was 92.
Douglas' current husband of 15 years, Donald Webster, confirmed to
The Hollywood Reporter that she died on Friday at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, California. She was married to Kirk Douglas, now 98, from 1943 to 1951.
Variety reported that the then Diana Love Dill and Kirk Douglas were both acting students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York when they met. She gave birth to Michael Douglas in 1944 and Joel Douglas, a producer, in 1947.
"I've always enjoyed Kirk's sense of humor, even when I was angriest at him," Diana Douglas told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011. "He could always make me laugh, somehow, which annoyed the hell out of me. But then I think we both decided too, when the time of divorce came, that we had to maintain a certain amount of civility because of the children."
"I know Michael has said since being an adult that he was always very grateful that we never did bad-mouth each other. Sometimes we probably wanted to. And also, I think that after [Kirk] got married to Anne, [she] made it very much easier, because she and I cooperated very much in terms of bedtimes and what they could watch on television and that kind of thing," she continued.
Deadline.com reported that Diana Douglas' father, Thomas Dill, who served as the attorney general of Bermuda, disapproved of her acting interest early on. The Powers Agency signed Douglas as a model and she made the cover Life magazine for a fashion issue before dedicating her career to acting.
Douglas acted in more than 20 films, according to Variety, including "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "It Runs in the Family." She starred opposite her ex-husband and son Michael Douglas in the 2003's "It Runs in the Family," noted The Hollywood Reporter.
She also appeared in the television series "The West Wing" and "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing," according to Variety.
Related Stories:
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.