Michael Douglas: A Biography

A groundbreaking portrait of one of Hollywood’s most successful stars, from critically acclaimed and bestselling biographer Marc Eliot

Through determination, inventiveness, and charisma, Michael Douglas emerged from the long shadow cast by his movie-legend father, Kirk Douglas, to become his own man and one of the film industry’s most formi dable players.

vercoming the curse of failure that haunts the sons and daughters of Hollywood celebrities, Michael became a sensation when he successfully brought One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, starring his friend Jack Nicholson, to the screen after numerous setbacks, including his father’s own failed attempts to make it happen. This 1975 box-office phenomenon won Michael his first Oscar (the film won five total, including Best Picture), an award Kirk hadn’t won at the time, and solidified the turbulent, competitive father-son relationship that would shape Michael’s career and personal life.

n the decades that followed, Michael established a reputation for taking chances on new talent and proj ects by producing and starring in the hugely successful Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile movies, while cultivating a multifaceted acting persona edgy, rebel lious, and a little dark in such films as Wall Street, Fatal Attraction, Basi