Michael Douglas

COP11 · July 30, 2010

Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards, first as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2009.

Early life

Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a son of Kirk Douglas and Bermudian actress Diana Dill. His paternal grandparents, Herschel Danielovitch and Bryna Sanglel, were Jewish immigrants from Gomel in Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire). His mother and maternal grandparents, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill and Ruth Rapalje Neilson, were natives of Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. Thomas Dill served as Attorney General of Bermuda and was commanding officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery.

Douglas has a younger brother, Joel Douglas (b. 1947), and two younger half-brothers, Peter Douglas (b. 1955) and Eric Douglas (1958–2004).

Michael Douglas attended the Allen-Stevenson School, the International School of Geneva, and graduated from Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1960 and The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut in 1963. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1966, where he is also the Honorary President of the UCSB Alumni Association.

Career

Douglas co-starred in the TV series The Streets of San Francisco from 1972 to 1976, with Karl Malden, who became a second father to him during the show's run. After Douglas left the show, he had a long association with his mentor until Malden's death on July 1, 2009. Long before his death, Malden and Douglas would occasionally run into each other—in 1996, Malden paid tribute to him at the People's Choice Awards. In 2004, Douglas presented Malden with the Monte Cristo Award of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, for the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1975, he received an Academy Award as producer for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Although Douglas was a capable actor on Streets, his career was somewhat stagnant after the series, and he only appeared in occasional movies which were usually less than popular (e.g., Running in 1979). One exception was The China Syndrome (1979), a dramatic film co-starring Jane Fonda about a disaster at a nuclear power plant. It mirrored the real-life Three Mile Island accident which took place 12 days after the film's release.

Douglas's fortunes changed when he starred in the 1984 romantic adventure comedy Romancing the Stone. The film was a respectable hit and earned over $86,572,238 worldwide in box-office receipts and an additional $36 million in video rentals. This film also helped launch Kathleen Turner to stardom, reintroduced Douglas to the public as a capable leading man, and gave Bob Zemeckis his first box-office success. It was followed a year later in 1985 by a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. 1987 was another pivotal year for Douglas, one that won him massive attention as a serious actor. He starred in the thriller Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close, and the film became a worldwide hit. That same year he played the insidious tycoon Gordon Gekko in Wall Street for which he received an Academy Award as Best Actor. It was announced in April 2009 that Douglas would be reprising his role as Gekko in Wall Street 2 with the original film's director Oliver Stone.

Douglas also starred as Mr. Rose, a successful lawyer similar to Gordon Gekko's personality, in The War of the Roses, which featured previous co-stars Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In 1989, he starred in the hit international police crime drama Black Rain opposite Andy Garcia and Kate Capshaw and was directed by filmmaker Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) and filmed in Osaka.

In 1992, Douglas revived his slick, worldly character when he appeared alongside Sharon Stone in the film Basic Instinct. The movie was a huge hit, and sparked controversy over its depictions of bisexuality and lesbianism. In 1994, Douglas and Demi Moore starred in the hit movie Disclosure focusing on the hot topic of sexual harassment with a twist—Douglas plays a man harassed by his new female boss. In 1998, Douglas received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Douglas's skill at character acting continued to make him one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, commanding a hefty sum for his roles. After the commercial failure of It Runs in the Family, a 2003 film that starred three generations of his family, Douglas did not star in a movie for three years, until the action-thriller The Sentinel in 2006. A year prior to the release of It Runs in the Family, he guest-appeared on the episode, "Fagel Attraction", of the popular television sitcom Will and Grace, as a gay cop attracted to Will Truman (Eric McCormack); the performance earned Douglas an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Show. His Fatal Attraction co-star, Glenn Close, appeared in the following episode of the series and also earned an Emmy nomination for her performance.

Douglas on being asked to do Basic Instinct 2:

"Yes, they asked me to do it a while ago, I thought we had done it very effectively; [Paul] Verhoeven is a pretty good director. I haven't seen the sequel. I've only done one sequel in my life, The Jewel of the Nile, from Romancing The Stone. Besides, there were age issues, you know? Sharon still looks fabulous. The script was pretty good. Good for her, she's in her late-40s, and there are not a lot of parts around. The first one was probably the best picture of her career—it certainly made her career and she was great in it".

Douglas will soon star in Tragic Indifference, a courtroom thriller based on a landmark liability case against Ford, according to Variety. Douglas will play the attorney who took Ford to court on behalf of a single mother from Texas who was paralyzed and nearly died after an accident. The trial exposed the automaker's indifference to flaws in its SUVs. The movie will be based on Adam Penenberg's 2003 book of the same name. Douglas will play Attorney Tab Turner, who represented Donna Bailey after the Ford Explorer she was riding in rolled over following a Firestone tire failure

On December 17, 2007 it was announced that Douglas was to be the new voice at the beginning of NBC Nightly News, some two years after Howard Reig, the previous announcer, retired.

Personal life

Douglas married Diandra Luker, 14 years his junior, on March 20, 1977. They had one son, Cameron (born December 13, 1978). In 1980, Douglas was involved in a serious skiing accident which sidelined his acting career for three years. In September 1992, the same year Basic Instinct came out, he underwent treatment for alcoholism at Sierra Tucson Center. In 2000, after 23 years of marriage, Diandra divorced Douglas.

Douglas married Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones on November 18, 2000; they were both born on September 25, though 25 years apart. Zeta-Jones says that when they met in Deauville, Douglas used the line "I want to father your children." They have two children, Dylan Michael (born August 8, 2000) and Carys Zeta (born April 20, 2003).

Douglas and Zeta-Jones hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2003. They acted as co-masters of ceremony in the concert celebrating the award given to Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. In 2006, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Douglas and his family divide their time among their homes in Pacific Palisades, California; New York City; Aspen, Colorado; Bermuda; Majorca, Spain; Swansea, Wales, Ridgewood, New Jersey, and La Conception, Quebec.

Douglas is an advocate of nuclear disarmament, a supporter of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and sits on the Board of Directors of the anti-war grantmaking foundation Ploughshares Fund. In 1998, he was appointed UN Messenger of Peace by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.He is a notable Democrat and has donated money to Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd, and Al Franken.

In 1997, New York caddy James Parker sued Douglas for USD$25 million. Parker accused Douglas of hitting him in the groin with an errant golf ball, causing Parker to lose a testicle and his job. The case was later settled out of court.

Humanitarian initiatives

In 2009 joined the project "Soldiers of Peace", a movie against all wars and for a global peace.

Douglas lent his support to the campaign to release Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.