Anne Douglas

Anne Buydens (born Hannelore Marx; April 23, 1919 – April 29, 2021) was a German-born American philanthropist and film producer. She was the wife of actor Kirk Douglas from 1954 until his death in 2020. She received a Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2003.

Buydens was born Hannelore Marx in Hanover, Weimar Republic (now Germany), on April 23, 1919, the daughter of Siegfried Marx, a textile merchant who imported silk for making parachutes, and Paula Marx, a socialite. After her parents were divorced, she was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, where she learned English, French and Italian. She later studied in Brussels but fled the bombed city for Paris during World War II. As her German identity was a problem, she became a Belgian citizen by marrying a Belgian, Albert Buydens, whom she later divorced.

When the Nazis in Paris insisted that films be shown with German subtitles, her language skills allowed her to find a job adding subtitles for a French film distributor. In 1948, she was hired to produce an NBC program, Paris Cavalcade of Fashion. She also worked as a location scout on the 1952 production of Moulin Rouge for John Huston. From 1953, she scheduled celebrity parties at the Cannes Film Festival.

When Buydens met Kirk Douglas in Paris in 1953, he was divorced from his first wife, Diana Dill, with whom he had two sons, Michael and Joel. They worked on the film Act of Love, directed by Anatole Litvak, he as an actor and she as a publicist. He offered her …