Jack Douglas, a prominent record producer known for his close work with John Lennon and the American rock band Aerosmith, has died at the age of 80. He passed away on May 11, 2026. Douglas played a significant role in the music industry from the late 1960s and was one of the last people to see Lennon alive.

Douglas was present at the Hit Factory studio in New York City on the evening of December 8, 1980, where he spent hours overdubbing Lennon’s guitar solo on Yoko Ono’s track "Walking on Thin Ice." The couple left the studio later that night and returned to their residence at the Dakota Building, where Lennon was fatally shot by Mark Chapman. Douglas typically shared their limousine due to proximity but stayed late that evening to continue work on a separate project.

Born in the Bronx on November 6, 1945, Douglas’s early career included work as a songwriter for Robert F. Kennedy’s senatorial campaign in 1964. He was an avid Beatles fan and traveled to Liverpool in 1965, where he was briefly detained for lacking visas and work permits. Upon returning to New York, Douglas studied sound engineering at the Institute of Audio Research, graduating in 1969. He joined the Record Plant studio initially as a janitor, eventually engineering sessions for artists such as Alice Cooper, Patti Smith, and the New York Dolls.

Douglas’s association with The Beatles began when John Lennon encountered him during the "Imagine" sessions and recognized his enthusiasm for the band. This meeting led to Douglas engineering and producing work with Lennon and Ono, most notably on the 1980 album "Double Fantasy." Lennon tasked Douglas with assembling a new group of musicians for the sessions, maintaining secrecy about their involvement. Yoko Ono fostered a calm and controlled environment during recording, discouraging distractions and ensuring a focused atmosphere marked by sobriety and tranquility.

Douglas recalled Lennon’s premonitions about his fate, noting Lennon’s statements that he might die soon and his insistence on meticulously documenting every moment of the sessions. Douglas also recounted a personal anecdote where, after falling and hitting his head in the studio bathroom, Lennon jokingly referred to him as Ringo Starr and encouraged him to continue working.

Although "Double Fantasy" initially received mixed reviews upon its November 1980 release, Lennon’s death the following month significantly boosted its sales, and the album, alongside Ono and Douglas, won a Grammy Award. A subsequent album, "Milk and Honey," was recorded but not released until 1984. That year, Douglas filed a lawsuit against Yoko Ono over unpaid royalties related to both albums, ultimately securing more than $2.5 million.

Douglas continued to collaborate with Aerosmith, producing several of their multi-platinum albums in the 1970s and co-writing multiple tracks on their 1977 release "Draw the Line." His later work included producing Supertramp’s 1997 album "Some Things Never Change" and Slash’s Snakepit’s 2000 album "Ain’t Life Grand," contributing as a co-writer on several songs.

In 2010, Douglas reunited with Ono to produce "Double Fantasy Stripped Down," a simplified reworking of the original album, though it failed to receive significant critical acclaim.

Douglas was married twice and had four children.