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| Real Name: Michael Douglas | ||||
| Birthday: September 25, 1944 | ||||
| Place of Birth: New Brunswick, NJ | ||||
| Education: Choate, Wallingford, CT; Black Fox Military Academy; University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara (drama); Neighborhood Playhouse, New York, NY; American Place Theatre, New York, NY | ||||
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Michael Douglas Biography: This oldest son of renowned Hollywood actor Kirk Douglas developed into a genuine double threat. His record for selling movies is unmatched by any of his actor producer peers, but his early years gave little suggestion of the sway he would one day wield within the business. Introduced to filmmaking on the sets of his father's films, Michael Douglas came to acting indifferent when ask to pick a major his junior year at U.C. Santa Barbara and began working uneasily at it after watching him in a university production of "As You Like It". A "hippie", Michael started his career in typical features, portraying optimistic young men taking on the issues of the day, and raised his prominence as co-star (with Karl Malden) of the television police drama "The Streets of San Francisco" (ABC, 1972-1975). Michael Douglas was still small time when he was hired for his feature producing debut, Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), tailored from the story by Ken Kesey and starring Jack Nicholson. The result was a smash hit an outstanding box-office returns and five Oscars, the first time that had happened since "It Happened One Night" (1934). Douglas shared Best Picture honors with Saul Zaentz, and Kirk made a ton of money and was no doubt fulfilled.
Douglas then teamed with Jane Fonda's IPC Films to co-produce and star in "The China Syndrome" (1979), about a reporter who finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant. The film benefited greatly from the the near meltdown catastrophe at the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility. Until "Romancing the Stone" (1984), Michael Douglas was thought of more as a producer than an actor, but his outstanding role of the good-natured, egotistical adventurer Jack Colton, a sort of second rate Indiana Jones, began to change all that. Basically a feminist take on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" the movie profitably joined him with Kathleen Turner and Danny De Vito for a fast-paced comedy action adventure. After the three made the expected, sequel, "Jewel of the Nile" (1985), Michael Douglas found himself on the annual Top 10 box office stars in ninth place, even though his obsession with producing responsibilities on both films had permitted Turner and De Vito to walk away as the stars. Douglas has seldom dominated a movie, except his 1987's "Wall Street" and 2000's "Wonder Boys" with Tobey Maguire, about an English Professor who tries to deal with his wife leaving him, the arrival of his editor who has been waiting for his book for seven years, and the various problems that his friends and associates involve him in. When De Vito's dark comedy of romance and divorce, "The War of the Roses" (1989), joined the three celebrities again, Michael Douglas could easily relax and act his part in the satire comedy on careers, love, money and material desires. Douglas ended that year as an icon like his father, having found himself as an actor. Even though "Wall Street" was more focused on the Charlie Sheen character, he won the Best Actor Oscar for his considerably more interesting Gordon Gekko, the superbly creepy and haughty corporate raider and embodiment of 1980's excess and greed. That same year, Douglas tried to get away with adultery that jeopardized his family in "Fatal Attraction", but audience's immediately forgave his human weakness to root against the burned stalker Glenn Close. Possibly even more with "Fatal Attraction" than with "Wall Street", Douglas had nailed a movie that echoed with audiences. Douglass also succeeded at the box office as a geek gone mad in Schumacher's "Falling Down" (1993), about an unemployed defense worker frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society, begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them. Douglas produced "Made in America" (1993), a humorous comic gathering of Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and a young Will Smith before being over-powered by a woman once again (Demi Moore) in "Disclosure" (1994) with Demi Moore. Based on Michael Crichton's top selling book, the movie told the story of a male executive sexually harassed by his female boss. Douglas next became involved in the 1995 comedy "The American President", a comedy-drama about a widowed US president and a lobbyist who fall in love. It's all aboveboard, but "politics is perception" and sparks fly anyway. Michael Douglas was amazingly light and cheerful as widowed President Shepherd, trying to balance running the free world and romancing an environmental lobbyist. In 1994, Michael signed a development deal at Paramount, where he produced and starred in the adventure "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996) with Val Kilmer, but the studio was better-off with two producing projects in which he did not have a role as actor - John Woo's "Face/Off" with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, about a revolutionary medical technique that allows an undercover agent to take the physical appearance of a major criminal and infiltrate his organization. Next was John Grisham's "The Rainmaker" (both 1997) and included a brief appearance by the young Claire Danes. Douglas then had a box office smash hit as a brutal businessman whose brother gives him an odd birthday present in David Fincher's action thriller "The Game" (1997). Douglas then turned in another great role, plotting the death of his rich wife (Gwyneth Paltrow, who many said was too young for him in "A Perfect Murder" (1998). Douglas's next role, as a pot smoking teacher suffering writer's block and his own adulterous ways in Curtis Hanson's 2000 "Wonder Boys", won the actor numerous critical raves. Douglass was helped by a cast of soon-to-be stars like Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes. Michael Douglas then found himself in the media and tabloids more for his personal life than his professional interests with a public romance and later high profile wedding to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, the younger mother of his second son. The two were featured in that year's "Traffic", a Steven Soderbergh adventure thriller in which Douglas played the nation's new drug czar who is trying to rid the United States of substance abuse while his own crack and heroin addicted daughter is falling into destruction.
In 2001, Douglas was seen as a man in the dark comedy "One Night at McCool's" and then as a psychiatrist blackmailed into treating a client with crucial information in the thriller "Don't Say a Word." In 2003, Douglas gained more tabloid headlines than box office dollars when he starred as the father of a dysfunctional family in "It Runs in the Family," the story of a dysfunctional New York family, and their attempts to reconcile. This was the first time Douglas worked professionally with his famous father Kirk, and his son Cameron Douglas and mother Diana Douglas. Also that year, Douglas starred in the comedy "The In-Laws," directed by Andrew Fleming, playing a CIA agent to Albert Brooks' poor dentist. After a vacation and some down-time from the big screen, Douglas appeared with his father Kirk in director Lee Grant's HBO documentary "A Father... A Son... Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" (2005) in which the famous dynasty frankly reflected on their long and fascinating careers and the difficult and eventually loving relationship. Michael then starred in the smash hit crime thriller "The Sentinel" (2006) working with an all-star cast including Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger and Eva Longoria, in the story about a secret service agent who is framed as the mole in an assassination attempt on the president. He must clear his name and foil another assassination attempt while on the run from a relentless FBI agent. Next was "You, Me and Dupree" with Kate Hudson (2005), about a best man (Owen Wilson) who stays on as a guest with newlyweds, much to the couple's aggravation.
Michael Douglas started the next year with the comedy "The King of California" (2006) with Evan Rachel Wood, about a manic depressive father who tries to convince his teenage daughter that here is buried treasure in the San Fernando Valley. Next was the mystery drama "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" (2009), a remake of the 1956 film noir film "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" in which a writer's plan to expose a corrupt district attorney takes an unexpected turn. True to form, Douglas returned to the romantic comedy films with a role in "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009) with Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey, about a bachelor who is haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends at his younger brother's wedding. Douglas ended the year with the dramatic adventure "Racing The Monsoons" (2008) with Catherine Zeta-Jones Family
Significant Others
Education
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In 1988, Douglas created Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced
Joel Schumacher's "Flatliners" (1990) which also starred 