A fatal cocktail of booze and drugs is being fingered in the death last month of Kirk Douglas' youngest son, Eric.
Douglas died due to "acute intoxication" from alcohol and prescription tranquilizers and pain killers, according to a spokesperson for the New York City medical examiner's office. The overdose was ruled accidental.
He was found dead on the living-room floor of a Manhattan apartment July 6. Police said there were no signs of foul play.
The 46-year-old Douglas had already suffered a prescription-drug-induced heart attack in 1999 that left him with "severe disabilities" and "unable to work," according to Daily Variety's Army Archerd.
Eric was Kirk Douglas' second son by his second wife, Anne Buydens, and the Hollywood icon's fourth child overall.
Despite the success of his legendary father and Academy Award-winning half-brother, Michael Douglas, Eric, an aspiring actor-comic, was unable to match their career achievements.
He amassed only a handful of minor credits--a guest bit on a White Shadow, a supporting part in The Golden Child. In 1991, he appeared in a Tales from the Crypt episode with his father. He also worked as a stand-up comic.
The younger Douglas more often made headlines for his rap sheet, including arrests for allegedly driving under the influence, disrupting a commercial airline flight and harassing a 12-year-old girl at a Connecticut psychiatric and substance-abuse hospital, a charge that he was found innocent of during a jury trial.