It might be difficult to listen to your gut. Is it warning you of impending danger or just letting you know that you had some bad food? Some individuals act on their intuition, while others completely reject it. Fortunately for Kirk Douglas, his wife Anne Buydens’ gut feelings regarding a planned trip proved to be crucial in saving his life.

In his 2000 autobiography Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning, the legendary actor from Hollywood discussed the mid-air crash that killed two men on February 13, 1991. Douglas, one of the three survivors of the tragic collision, said that the day was “the most important day of my life” as a result of the tragedy.

The 74-year-old tough man actor was a passenger on a flight from California’s Santa Paula Airport with his pilot buddy, cartoon voice actor Noel Blanc. For the regular trip, Blanc launched the Bell Ranger helicopter, unfortunately colliding with a Pitts aerobatic aircraft being piloted by Lee Manelski, 47, and student pilot David Tomlinson, 18, both of whom perished.

“In that horrible fraction of a second, the rotating blades of Noel’s Bell Ranger helicopter sliced into the wing of David and Lee’s Pitts, ripping it open and exposing its fuel to air. Carried by its fateful momentum, the little plane continued to rise forward into the blue sky,” Douglas recounted.

Douglas claimed to have little memory of what transpired after his helicopter plunged 20 to 40 feet (about 6 to 12 meters) and crashed into tarmac, leading to his rescue by a flight technician.

“But we were alive in the tangled wreckage,” Douglas wrote. “David and Lee were dead in the smoldering remains. At that moment I was unconscious. I didn’t know that from this day forward I would be asking: Why did they die? Why was I alive?”

The actor said in the book that a flight mechanic named Darryl bravely ran towards the wreckage and turned off the helicopter’s motor to prevent it from exploding.

“Often, when I am asked about the accident today, people want to know what I experienced at the moment. Did I see a long tunnel with a blazing white light at the other end? Sorry, I saw and heard nothing. If it was there, I missed the show,” he wrote. “I have no remembrance of being pulled from the wreckage, put in an ambulance and brought to the emergency room. I have no recollection of X-rays, CAT scans and the doctors’ examinations.”

Douglas said one of the few things he did remember was learning the names of the two victims from his hospital bed. “Somewhere out there, not too far from where I lay, the lives of the people who loved them were forever changed… and now mine had as well.”

On March 7, 1991, three weeks after the crash, Douglas received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. At the time, he told the crowd that he did not see his life flash before his eyes when he crashed, “But thank God … I got a second chance to see it tonight.”

Kirk Douglas Earlier Survived Fatal Crash That Killed Elizabeth Taylor’s Husband

According to Biography, on the morning of March 22, 1958, Kirk Douglas’ close friend, producer Mike Todd, invited the actor over for their regular game of tennis. Douglas and Todd lived across from one another in Palm Springs, California and would often meet up to spend time together. Todd was coming off a spectacular year where he not only won an Academy Award for his film “Around The World in 80 Days,” but he’d also married the love of his life, “Cleopatra” star, Elizabeth Taylor.

Todd told him that Taylor was ill with a cold and invited Douglas to accompany him to New York City later that day.

“Mike asked me to go on his private plane with him, and we were going to stop and see Harry Truman [in Independence, Missouri] and then go on to New York,” the actor, who has called President Truman an idol, explained in an interview with People. “I was very excited.”

But Douglas’ wife Anne, who was six months pregnant with their child Eric was not so enthused. A bad feeling came over her and she asked her husband not to get on that plane.

Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne, recount the harrowing tale in a book titled, “Kirk and Anne: Letters of Love, Laughter, and a Lifetime in Hollywood.” Anne writes, “I don’t know what came over me, but I had a strange feeling. ‘Absolutely not, Kirk. I don’t want you on that plane. You can fly commercial and meet him there.'”

An argument ensued between the husband and wife, and a “furious” Douglas decided that if he couldn’t fly with Todd, he’d pass on the trip altogether. As Anne later recalled, he even “stomped off to bed without kissing me goodnight.”

The next morning, still sore about the argument, Kirk and Anne refused to talk to each other according to People, so they turned on the radio as a way to fill the angry silence. It’s then that they heard the tragic news come over the airwaves, Mike Todd’s plane “The Liz” had crashed shortly after takeoff. There were no survivors.

“I pulled onto the shoulder of the road immediately,” wrote Kirk. “Shakily, I got out of the car. Anne joined me. We stood, wrapped together in a strong embrace, tears streaming down our faces. Finally, I said, ‘Darling, you saved my life. I will always trust your intuition from now on.'”

If it weren’t for Elizabeth Taylor’s cold and Anne Douglas’ intuition, Hollywood would’ve had a tragic rewrite that fateful day in March. However, the loss of Mike Todd and the three others who were on the plane with him sent shockwaves through the inner circles of the entertainment industry. As a producer, Todd belonged to the insular group of Hollywood filmmakers working behind the scenes — often overlooked, but nonetheless, crucial to the cultural fabric of Hollywood.

Douglas’ son, actor Michael Douglas, confirmed to PEOPLE that his dad had died.

“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” the statement read. “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 set a standard for all of us to aspire to.”

“But to me and my brothers Joel and Peter he was simply Dad, to Catherine, a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband,” the Behind the Candelabra star continued.

“Kirk’s life was well lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come, and a history as a renowned philanthropist who worked to aid the public and bring peace to the planet,” the statement said.

“Let me end with the words I told him on his last birthday and which will always remain true,” he concluded. “Dad- I love you so much and I am so proud to be your son.”