103-year-old Kirk Douglas and 101-year-old Anne Bidense: How Hollywood's oldest couple managed to keep love for 65 years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

They have not had to prove anything to anyone for a long time. The representative of the "golden era" of Hollywood Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne Bidense met in the middle of the last century, went through serious trials together, survived the loss of one of their sons and remained still in love and happy with each other. What is the secret of their all-consuming long-term happiness?

Parisian romance

When Kirk Douglas had already become one of the most popular American actors, his life was filled with new events, meetings and proposals. In the 1950s, not only America but also Europe submitted to him. In 1953, Kirk Douglas happened to work in the most romantic city in the world. He needed an assistant, and numerous acquaintances repeatedly mentioned some Anne who was away. Everyone believed that it was she who could help Douglas.

When the girl finally returned to Paris, they were introduced to each other. And the famous actor, without doubting the positive answer, invited Ann to one of the most expensive and popular restaurants in the French capital. But she looked at him, shook her head and said that she would go home to make herself scrambled eggs.

Douglas was stunned: he, a famous actor, the object of dreams of many women, honored the girl with his attention, and she just went home! He made several more attempts to charm Ann, but she did not react in any way to his passionate speech. Anne Bidense drew a clear line: they communicate exclusively on business. But the work just helped them to get closer.

She did not at all crave to spin a frivolous romance with a star actor and thereby won his heart finally and irrevocably. He learned not to talk about himself, but to hear the woman who so unceremoniously stopped all his attempts to get closer. And suddenly he realized that this girl was not like any of those with whom he started a non-binding relationship after the divorce from his first wife, Diana Dill.

Over time, a rather trusting friendship developed between Kirk and Ann. She told him about her past, about life in German-occupied Paris, about painful memories, about the desire to achieve success. It turned out that she knows four languages, is well versed in art and has an amazing sense of humor. Douglas fell in love for real.

And only when he stopped pretending to be a screen macho, she drew attention to a person who, after a gala concert in the circus, could help clean elephant cages from manure. The famous Kirk Douglas looked funny in his evening tuxedo and with a shovel in his hands. But Ann drew attention to the actor's ability to act unexpectedly. It was this quality that conquered the woman.

Strange romance

But even when their romance was already in full swing, Kirk Douglas was in no hurry to commit himself. Moreover, he was engaged to the Italian actress Pierre Angeli, who took her mother with her on all dates. He was so cruel that he asked Ann to help him choose Angela's engagement ring. She meekly complied with the request and did not even show him how painful those minutes were in the jewelry store.

However, the actor never hid his novels and hobbies from her. She avenged him for her suffering in a very elegant way. On Douglas's birthday, a surprise awaited him in his Paris apartment. Ann invited all the women Kirk had ever met with him. They were lined up in a long line by the time of his arrival, and Douglas, barely looking at this formation, only smiled and whispered in Ann's ear:

Nevertheless, he proposed to his Italian siren Pierre Angeli, and when she accepted him, he instantly lost interest in her. At dinner that day, knowing that a passionate night awaited him, he suddenly realized that he had stopped loving the girl. And broke off their engagement.

A year after the start of their romance, Ann told Kirk that she had allowed him to push her emotionally all this time. But if he continues to do this, she will simply be forced to leave him in order to avoid pain. And a few days later he saw Ann seriously collecting her things. Then he realized: if this woman leaves, he will simply disappear without her. She won't give him a second chance. And then he asked Ann to marry him. Just a few days later, Kirk Douglas and Anne Bidense registered their marriage in Las Vegas.

However, for some time, due to problems with Ann's visa, the couple had to spend in separation. They wrote letters to each other with declarations of love, desperately yearned and could not wait to be together again. She called him sweet, beloved and dear in different languages, he also invented affectionate playful nicknames for her.

Feelings carried through trials

Once Anne saved his life by forbidding him to board a private plane to New York with Elizabeth Taylor's husband Mike Todd, literally ordering her husband to take a ticket on a regular commercial flight. Todd's plane crashed and all of his passengers and crew were killed. Another time, she was suspicious of Douglas's business partner and it turned out that he almost ruined the actor. Since then, he always trusted her intuition.

After the birth of their first son, Peter, Kirk Douglas wrote to Ann:

They have been through a lot in 65 years. Ann Bidense became the main woman in the life of the legendary actor, his first assistant and the head of the film company created by Douglas.

They were able to defeat Ann's cancer, and then she again saved him from suicidal depression, into which he fell after a stroke. In 2004, they lost their youngest son, Eric, to a drug overdose.

She also kept their letters all her life, which later became the basis of their joint book "Kirk and Ann: Letters of Love, Laughter and Life in Hollywood." In 2004, they again exchanged vows of allegiance and threw a lavish wedding to which they invited many guests, and the organization was entrusted to Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Their love has not disappeared or even faded over the years. They all look at each other with the same love and tenderness, and Kirk Douglas confesses: "… my unrelenting admiration and need for this wonderful woman still amazes me." And Ann agrees with her husband: "This is a story of endless love." He is already 102 years old, she is 100, their faces are cut with wrinkles and thinned by centuries-old winds. But in the eyes of both, the unquenchable fire of the eternal, like life itself, feelings continues to burn.

Someone believes that patience is necessary for a strong marriage, while for someone the basis for a long relationship is a sense of humor and the ability to see funny in the most difficult situations. We invite you to get acquainted with the secrets of a strong marriage from celebrities who have lived together for over 40 years.