Actress Diana Douglas — mother of Michael Douglas — dies at 92

Diana Douglas, first wife of Kirk Douglas, died of cancer at a motion picture industry retirement home in Los Angeles.

Diana Douglas with her son Michael, right, his son Cameron, left, and her former husband Kirk in 2003.

Actress Diana Douglas, the first wife of Kirk Douglas and mother of Michael Douglas, has died. She was 92.

Douglas died of cancer at a motion­ picture industry retirement home in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles, an obituary from Michael Douglas’s produc­tion company, Furthur Films, said yesterday. It cited Diana Douglas’s husband of 15 years, Donald Webster of Washington.

Born Diana Love Dill in Bermuda, where her family had lived for centuries and her father was attorn­ey-general, Douglas moved to New York and met Kirk while they were studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

She had a six-decade career as an actress and model, appearing in dozens of movies and TV shows, including the 1987 Steve Martin film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, ER and The West Wing.

She did stage roles, including some on Broadway.

In May 1943 she appeared on the cover of Life magazine, modelling spring fashions. “Kirk Douglas, by then serving in the navy during World War II, saw her cover and told his shipmates he would marry her,” the obituary said. They wed that November and had two sons, Michael and Joel, before divorcing in 1951.

The two remained on amicable terms. She appeared with him in several movies, including her last film, in 2003, It Runs in the Family, which also starred Michael Douglas and one of her grandsons, Cameron. Douglas was also married to actor Bill Darrid from 1956 until his death in 1992.

AP