After he began an affair with Lady Sylvia Ashley, Fairbanks and Pickford separated in 1933. Fairbanks, Sr. and Mary Pickford divorced in 1936, with her keeping Pickfair. On March 7, 1936, in Paris, France, he and Ashley were married.
He continued to be marginally involved in motion picture industry and United Artists, but his later years lacked the intense focus of his film years. His health continued to decline, and in his final years he resided at 705 Ocean Front (now Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica California, although much of his time was spent traveling abroad with Sylvia.
In December, 1939, at 56, Fairbanks had a heart attack in his sleep and died a day later at his home in Santa Monica. By some accounts, he had been obsessively working-out against medical advice, trying to regain his once-trim waistline. Fairbanks famous last words were "I've never felt better." 1 His funeral service was held at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather Church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, where he was placed in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum.
He was deeply mourned and honored by his colleagues and fans for his contributions to the film industry and Hollywood. Two years following his death, he was removed from Forest Lawn by his widow, who commissioned an elaborate marble monument for him, with long rectangular reflecting pool, raised tomb, and classic Greek architecture, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The remains of his son Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. were also interred here upon his death in 2000.
There is a witty reference to him in the David Lean film A Passage to India (set in Edwardian India) in which one of the characters performs acrobatic feats on the side of a train calling, "I am Douglas Fairbanks!"