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Personal Profile

Michael Douglas
  • Birth Name:
    Michael Kirk Douglas
  • Common Name:
    M.K. Douglas
  • Date of Birth:
    September 25, 1944
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Libra
  • Place of Birth:
    New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
  • Height:
    5' 10"
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Hair Color:
    Brown
  • Eye Color:
    Blue
  • Nationality:
    American
  • Education:

    University of California

Family

Michael Douglas
  • Father:
    Kirk Douglas
  • Mother:
    Diana Douglas
  • Brother:
    Joel Douglas
  • Spouse:
    Catherine Zeta-Jones - Present
    Diandra Douglas - Divorced

Career

Michael Douglas

Awards

Michael Douglas

2004 : Cecil B. DeMille Award

1988 : Golden Globe Award, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for : Wall Street (1987)

1988 : KCFCC Award

2000 : LAFCA Award, Best Actor
for : Wonder Boys (2000)

Trivia

Michael Douglas
  • Named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His mission: to focus worldwide attention on nuclear disarmament and human rights. [1998]
    submitted by - Vaibhav Dhiman
  • Ranked #74 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
    submitted by - Aksh Dhiman
  • His second son and first child with Catherine Zeta-Jones, a boy named Dylan Michael, was born on 8th August about 6 p.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre near Beverly Hills. The baby weighed in at 7 pounds and seven ounces and measured 21-1/2 inches. He met Catherine at the Deauville Film Festival in France in August 1998; they began dating in March 1999 and got engaged on New Year's Eve 1999.
    submitted by - Amit Rank
  • Is of Russian-Jewish, Scottish, and Irish heritage.
    submitted by - Amit Rank
  • As of 2002, he and Sir Laurence Olivier are the only two people in history to win Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Actor (although Olivier won them simultaneously for the same film).
    submitted by - Amit Kher
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Quotes

Michael Douglas
  • It was Karl who, more than anyone, got me to understand that an actor is just one part of a whole team that makes a TV series or movie work. And thanks to him, I learned about the dichotomy of standing alone in a craft where one must collaborate. - Unknown
    submitted by - Aksh Dhiman
  • I do pictures for myself, because I figure if I like them, some other crazy people out there might like them, too. You know, once you've gained your confidence and done some bizarre, strange films with some roles that have been successful, it gives you the confidence to go out there and take more chances. - Unknown
    submitted by - Chotu Dhiman
  • The process of making a movie continues to amaze me. There is a certain magic that happens. And you never know when it's going to be. But while a writer is alone with their word processor, or a painter is alone in a studio, or a musician is working on a song, movie making is a big kind of collaborative family. Certainly it starts with the written word, but then it becomes a collaborative art and that process never ceases to amaze me. It's almost mystical. It's something that is really alive and - Unknown
    submitted by - Amit Rank
  • When you are a second-generation success, you are provided for. And that certainly was a big opportunity. But you don't have that 'rags-to-riches story,' which is always a much more dramatic story to plot. Your success is not one that is as easily accepted by the people outside. Or they don't really have an appreciation of what you have accomplished. As a producer, my successes came fairly early in my career; as an actor, they came much later. Winning the Academy Award for Wall Street really he - Unknown
    submitted by - Amit Kher
  • Unlike your average profession, acting usually comes in concentrated doses. When you're an actor, it's anywhere from two and a half to five months of intense work and then it's done. That's the hardest part of film acting. There is no audience response, so you really don't get any immediate satisfaction. What I really love is the feeling of nailing something. You nail the scene. Most of the time you don't shoot movies in continuity, you only do things in parts, so nailing a scene is really a re - Unknown
    submitted by - Amit Kher
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Biography

Michael Douglas
Last Updated: Monday, December 07, 2009

Michael DouglasMichael Douglas is one of the few actors who actually appears to be a walking paradox. A household name, an estimated worth of over $200 million, a father (Kirk Douglas) who was one of the world's biggest film stars in the 1950s and 1960s, and a wife whose father is younger than he is, Douglas has indeed gained fame and acclaim. His parents (Kirk and wife Diana Douglas) divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband.

Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael Douglas attended Eaglebrook school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door". Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent.

When Michael Douglas started his career in the early 1970s people were all too ready to tag him as "the next Kirk Douglas". He defied all those critics by accepting sensitive, quiet, hippie-type roles, a far cry from the macho, leading-man, all-American hero parts that his father was most famous for. It didn't earn Michael much credibility, but it earned him his own identity. His first real break came on the TV series "The Streets of San Francisco" (1972) opposite screen veteran Karl Malden.

Michael Douglas gained quite a following on this show, and left it to produce One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). His own life was never brilliant either. He had dreams of acting alongside brother Joel Douglas, the one brother out of his three to which he was closest (he would only see Peter Douglas and the late Eric Douglas when he visited his father), but Joel wanted no part of the acting his family was famous for. Michael married the young Diandra Douglas (b. Diane Luker in 1958) in 1977, and they had one son together, Cameron. The marriage eventually failed, as Diandra claimed that she was sick of his womanizing, absenteeism, and not being "a proper father to Cameron".

In the 1980s Michael Douglas tried his hand at comedies, the most successful being Romancing the Stone (1984), its sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985), and The War of the Roses (1989), in which he co-starred with Danny DeVito and Kathleen Turner. It was in the 1990s, though, in which he gained the most notorious aspects of his reputation. He starred in Basic Instinct (1992), a thriller, heavy on sex and violence, that was a worldwide hit. Having played a similar role in Fatal Attraction (1987), it did indeed appear that he was being typecast in "man against woman" type roles, and pictures like Disclosure (1994) did nothing to dissuade that opinion.

Michael Douglas finally tried to break away from this image with The American President (1995) and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), yet when he started dating Catherine Zeta-Jones, 25 years his junior, this image continued, even after their marriage. After two children with Jones, Michael is trying to settle down to become a more "family-oriented" actor. The comedy Wonder Boys (2000) and the Douglas-clan movie It Runs in the Family (2003) were only minor hits, and it appears Michael is again looking for a career change. Trying his hand now at light-hearted comedies, like the re-make of The In-Laws (2003/I), he hopes to break away from his past reputation.

Filmography

Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas Images & Videos

 Michael Douglas images
 Michael Douglas images
 Michael Douglas images
 
Basic Instinct - Trailer videos

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