CANTON -- St. Lawrence University will name its new $14 million residence hall after famous actor and SLU alumni Kirk Douglas.

On behalf of The Douglas Foundation, which the star and his wife Anne created to support their many charitable gifts, Kirk Douglas said, “I am very happy that the new residence hall will bear my name. This way I will always be part of the campus I love. While I appreciate this great honor, my wife and I find our greatest joy in the heartfelt letters we receive each year from our scholarship recipients, telling us what a St. Lawrence education means to them and their future.”

In his bestselling autobiography, The Ragman’s Son, the legendary star told how he hitchhiked to St. Lawrence University on the back of a fertilizer truck. A sympathetic Dean, Edwin Hulett, gave him provisional admission to the college, despite his confession that he only had $167. With a wrestling scholarship and numerous campus jobs, young Izzy Demsky graduated in 1939 and went on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. For his Broadway and Hollywood career, he changed his name to Kirk Douglas.

As the son of impoverished Jewish immigrants from Russia, Douglas has always remembered how difficult it was for a poor kid from a minority background to afford a higher education. He and his wife, Anne, through their Douglas Foundation, started the Kirk Douglas Scholarship at St. Lawrence in 1999 to support students who represent diversity, have financial need and demonstrate excellence in academic ability and community leadership. They expanded the program in 2012 with an additional $5 million gift.

According to St. Lawrence University president William L. Fox, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name the new residence hall on campus in honor of the actor who will celebrate his 98th birthday on Dec. 9, with the publication of his 11th book, a small volume called "Life Could Be Verse: Reflections On Love, Loss, And What Really Matters." The book contains two poems he wrote while at St. Lawrence and includes a photo in which Douglas poses with classmates, one of whom is the red-headed girl who inspired both poems.

Among Douglas’s many prestigious awards – including the French Legion d’Honneur, the Freedom Medal (America’s highest civilian honor), an Academy Award and a Kennedy Center Honor – he proudly cites his honorary doctorate from St. Lawrence in 1958, SLU said. Now he has his own residence hall. It’s in close proximity to another building on campus named for Dean Hulett, the man who once took a chance on a poor boy from Amsterdam, New York.

Kirk Douglas Hall will be dedicated at a future ceremony, the details of which will be announced at a later date, SLU said.