HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jul 05 2015 – Actress Diana Douglas, mother of 70-year-old actor Michael Douglas, had died at age 92.
Her husband of 15 years, Donald Webster said that she passed away at the Motion Picture and Television Fund nursing home in Woodland Hills, California after battling cancer.
Born Diana Love Dill on January 22, 1923, in Devonshire, Bermuda, her family roots reached back to the 1640s.
Her father, Thomas M. Dill, was Attorney General of Bermuda and although his daughter longed to become an actress, he believed that acting, especially for women, was a shady, even disreputable, line of work.
He finally relented, figuring she might as well study acting in America and get it out of her system.
During her studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she became a Powers Agency model and, at 20, graced the cover of Life magazine on May 3, 1943.
Diana was the first wife of Michael’s dad, actor Kirk Douglas, 98. The two met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where they both studied acting. They divorced in 1951 after about eight years.
Diana also is survived by her and Kirk’s son, Joel Douglas, a 68-year-old producer, and grandchildren Cameron Douglas, 36, as well as Dylan Michael Douglas, 14, and Carys Zeta Douglas, Michael’s children with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, 45.
