What Were Kirk Douglas' Last Words?

Sometimes, a tremendous amount of pressure is placed upon a person's last words. There's an expectation that they should be poignant, heartfelt, meaningful, something that will give solace to those people left behind. They should also neatly summarize somebody's personality and everything they stood for.

That can be the expectation, but the truth is, it doesn't often happen that way. Tragically sudden unexpected deaths really don't give the time for that sort of thing. As with a lot of things in life, more pressure is usually put on celebrities in this regard. The world's greatest writers, entertainers, actors, and musicians are expected to say something worthy of their reputations. According to ThoughtCo., it's said that the last words of Dominique Bouhours, grammarian from France, translate to "I am about to or I am going to die. Either expression is used." A fine example of dying as you lived.

Acting icon Kirk Douglas, meanwhile, might be expected to have passed along some last words of wisdom. Some brilliant advice that encapsulated his decades in the craft. This was not the case, it seems. Instead, he took one last opportunity to advocate for a presidential candidate.

Per Biography, Douglas made his first movie in 1946: "The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers," opposite Barbara Stanwyck. In no time at all, he had defined himself as an actor to be reckoned with. Over the course of his career, though, he had some questionable roles. In June of 1971, he appeared on The Dick Cavett Show (via The Dick Cavett Show on YouTube), and the host asked, "which movie [of yours] would you flush down the john?" Douglas claimed that "The Big Trees" was his worst. He appeared in the movie for free, as a means of getting himself out of a contract he felt stuck in. "I did it for nothing ... it was a terrible picture," the star said.

Missteps aside, Douglas starred with some of the biggest names in the business, and had a remarkable output and distinctive style. On his sad death in February 2020, aged 103, the industry mourned. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Steven Spielberg stated, "I will miss his handwritten notes, letters and fatherly advice, and his wisdom and courage."

According to son Michael (per the Los Angeles Times), Kirk's last words were a very different kind of wisdom. Michael reported shortly after his father's death, "one of the last words he said when he was in the hospital ... he asked me to lean over closely ... he looked at me and he said, 'Mike can get it done.'"

Naturally, Douglas father and son would surely have shared some tender words that were just between them too. The statement "Mike can get it done," however, is a very interesting one. The Los Angeles Times goes on to state that the Mike in question is not Kirk's son, but instead Mike Bloomberg. Per the outlet, Bloomberg, who had been the mayor of New York, was a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 2020.

Mike did not get it done, as the nomination and ultimate presidency went to Joe Biden. Per the Los Angeles Times, Michael Douglas stated that he was unsure whether his father was joking with this statement, but it's clear that Kirk strove to support others and felt that Bloomberg did too.

When he broke the news of his father's death on Instagram, Michael Douglas wrote that Kirk was not only a Hollywood icon, but "a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to." Perhaps he continued to speak of one such cause, right to the end.