Kirk and Anne Douglas' love story: Affair between colleagues turned into lifetime of romance despite infidelity
When Anne Buydens first met Kirk Douglas, she had strictly insisted that their relationship would never be anything more than professional. She was married to a Belgian friend and Kirk was courting actress Pier Angeli. He was a famous American actor and she was going to be nothing more than his bilingual publicist. Or so Anne thought all those years ago, when the two crossed paths on the sets of 'Act of Love' in Paris circa 1953.
Little did Anne know that this once 'insensitive' man would go on to become the greatest listener and confidant she had ever known and that they would end up being together for 85 years. Together they made a journey that braved the storms of infidelity, cancer and the loss of a child. Such was the strength of their relationship that Anne died on April 29 at 102, just one year after her beloved husband's death in February 2020. In the wake of her death, let's take a look at where the couple's journey began.
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In their joint tell-all memoir 'Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter and a Lifetime in Hollywood', Anne had addressed her Belgian husband whom she had reportedly married "during World War II for safety reasons". Kirk was looking to hire a bilingual publicist at the time and his friend had suggested Anne, who couldn't be more professional. But Kurk was charmed right from the start. In their memoir, he notes, "This self-possessed beauty (Anne) was very different from the women I had been involved with, in Hollywood since Diana (his ex-wife) left me."
They chose to be friends first. Anne eventually opened up to him about her traumatic past in Germany and Kirk ended up offering his ears and comfort her. Anne wrote in her memoir that by then, she had realized that Kirk wanted more than a professional relationship. She, too, was self admittedly falling for the actor but resisted because she knew too well how women often wasted their lives in affairs with big stars. So they stuck to spending romantic weekends together and appearing in public to buy engagement ring for Angeli. Looking back at that, Kirk dubbed himself 'insensitive' for never letting his future wife forget that he intended to marry no one else but Angeli. Little did he know that this engagement would be over in less than a year, and by May 1954 he would be married to Anne.
The marriage didn't come out of the blue. Anne packed her bags and threatened to leave Kirk before he proposed to her. His philandering ways didn't stop after tying the knot either, but Anne was always surprisingly calm and accepting about that trait of his personality. In 1988, Kirk even bragged about his wandering eyes, but Anne divulged the mantra to their long marriage in their memoir. "Kirk never tried to hide his dalliances from me," she shared in the book, adding: "As a European, I understood it was unrealistic to expect total fidelity in a marriage."
But the infidelity, no matter how significant a woe for the couple, wasn't all their marriage was made of. Kirk once wrote in a letter to Anne, "Always remember darling, I need you...for you, I hope to do wonderful things in life. This is it — you and me and our family forever!" Their lengthy forever was however soon struck with Anne's terrifying battle with breast cancer. Kirt too suffered a stroke shortly after Anne was diagnosed, but their woes were not over.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy their lives were embroiled in was the death of their youngest son Eric Douglas. The couple lost Eric to a drug and alcohol overdose in 2004. Bitter-sweet and tumultuous, Kirk and Anne still strived for their happily ever after. Kirk lived up to his promise of doing wonderful things for the two of them and gave Anne the grand wedding they never had on their 50th wedding anniversary. Anne too surprised her husband by converting to Judaism, right before this grand ceremony.
At the time of Kirk's death on February 5, 2020, his eldest son Michael Douglas (with ex-wife Diana) had shared in his tribute to the late actor: "To me and my brothers Joel and Peter he was simply Dad, to Catherine, a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great-grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband." For Anne, too, Michael had similar sentiments to share. In a tribute to his late stepmom, the 76-year-old actor shared, "She brought out the best in all of us, especially our father. Dad would never have had the career he did without Anne’s support and partnership."