Michael Douglas
Actor, film producer
Born: September 25, 1944, in New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2012: Arts & Entertainment
One of only two film greats to receive Academy Awards as both actor and producer, Michael Douglas is proud to proclaim himself a native of the Garden State.
At his 2012 New Jersey Hall of Fame induction, the actor explained his New Jersey connection. His father, the famous actor Kirk Douglas, was discharged from the Navy after being wounded in action during World War II. Coming home, the elder Douglas moved into a Manhattan apartment with his wife, the actress Diana Dill. Diana’s older sister, Ruth, happened to be married to Seward Johnson, a son of Robert Wood Johnson, co-founder of the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson.
As a young couple living in Manhattan, Kirk and Diana frequently spent weekends visiting Ruth at the Johnson estate in New Brunswick. During one of those visits, Diana went into labor and gave birth to the couple’s first child, Michael, at St. Peter’s Hospital in New Brunswick.
According to IMDB, Douglas’ parents divorced when he was six, and he grew up living with his mother and her new husband. Douglas attended private schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, then earned a B.A. in dramatic art at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
In the late 1960s, Douglas landed his earliest roles on TV and in some minor films. His big break came in 1972, when he scored a starring role as a young policeman alongside Karl Malden in TV’s “The Streets of San Francisco.” During breaks from the shooting schedule, Douglas began his production career, mainly with short films. Then in 1975, he co-produced the film version of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey. The film won five Academy Awards, including best picture. It was the first Oscar for Douglas.
Douglas’ film career began to take off with lead roles in the medical thriller “Coma” (1978) and the sports drama “Running” (1979). He also produced and co-starred in the hit film “The China Syndrome,” a cautionary tale about the attempted coverup of a nuclear power plant accident. Like “Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The China Syndrome” combined entertainment value with social relevance.
In 1984, Douglas scored a resounding hit as actor and producer with the romantic-comedy-adventure film “Romancing the Stone.” He followed that as actor/producer of a hit sequel, “The Jewel of the Nile.” (Both films featured Danny DeVito, Douglas’ fellow New Jersey native and former roommate, and a New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee.)
More major roles followed. In 1987, Douglas starred in the thriller “Fatal Attraction,” and won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of the iconic greed-head Gordon Gekko in the film “Wall Street.” That placed him alongside Sir Laurence Olivier as having won Oscars as both actor and producer.
With Douglas at his Hollywood peak, the juicy roles kept coming. These included star turns in major films such as “The War of the Roses”; “Black Rain”; the controversial “Basic Instinct”; “Falling Down”; and the enduring 1995 romantic comedy “The American President.”
Notable roles in the new century included “Behind the Candelabra” (2013), an HBO comedy-drama starring Douglas as the flamboyant entertainer Liberace. The performance earned him an Emmy Award. In 2018, he scored more critical applause – and a Golden Globe award – for his portrayal of an aging acting coach in the TV miniseries “The Kominsky Method.”
Douglas has long been noted for his political activism, particularly his advocacy for human rights and nuclear disarmament, and his support for Jewish causes.