Spartacus actor Kirk Douglas has passed away at the age of 103, his son revealed to People Magazine.

Michael Douglas said: “It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103.

“To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in setting a standard for all of us to aspire to.”

Throughout his career that spanned seven decades, Douglas starred in over 90 films, with hits such as Spartacus and The Vikings making him one of the biggest box office stars in the 1950s and 1960s.

He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in 1959 for his role as boxer Midge Kelly in Champion.

He went on to earn two more Oscar nominations as a producer for The Bad And The Beautiful in 1953 and Lust For Life in 1957.

He appeared alongside John Wayne in three movies – In Harm’s Way, Cast A Giant Shadow and The War Wagon and also pocketed $50,000 for saying the only English word at the end of a Japanese TV commercial: Coffee.

But his proudest achievement was his major role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist: Actors, directors and writers who were excluded professionally due to their ties to the communist movement in the 1950s.

Douglas was in a helicopter crash in 1991, which he survived. But five years later, he suffered from a stroke.

Due to the stroke, he was left with slurred speech and damaged facial nerves, but despite it all, he still powered through to attend the Academy Awards two weeks later to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Scroll through the gallery below to see Kirk Douglas' life in pictures.