Michael Douglas: The Untold Story of His Life
Hollywood Royalty
Michael Kirk Douglas was born to Hollywood royalty in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on September 25th, 1944. His father was legendary screen actor Kirk Douglas, star of Spartacus. Kirk’s birth name was Issur Danielovitch, and his Jewish parents immigrated to the USA from the Russian Empire, modern-day Belarus.
Michael’s mom was British actress Diana Dill, who hailed from Bermuda. You may know her for playing Martha Evans from Days of Our Lives or Peg from the hilarious Steve Martin film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
His Parents Divorce
When Michael was born, Kirk Douglas hadn’t appeared on the silver screen. He made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers when Michael was two years old. However, when Michael was seven years old and his younger brother Joel was four, his parents divorced in 1951.
Two years later, Kirk met producer Anne Buydens (pictured), while filming 1953’s Act of Love. The two married the following year and went on to have two boys, Peter and Eric Douglas, Michael’s half-brothers.
Michael’s Education
Michael attended Allen-Stevenson School, a private boys’ elementary school in New York City, before attending Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and Choate Preparatory School in Wallingford, Connecticut. The youngster picked up his filmmaking education by watching his ever-present father make classic films like The Vikings and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and Spartacus.
Following in his parent’s footsteps, Michael studied drama at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with a B.A. in 1968. He continued his acting education at New York’s American Place Theater.
Early Career
Michael’s first TV role was in a 1969 CBS Playhouse special, The Experiment, in which he was credited as “M.K. Douglas.” That November, he set up his first production company, Bigstick Productions, Ltd.
Douglas made his screen debut in the 1969 Vietnam-era antiwar film Hail, Hero!, which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Male Newcomer. Over the next three years, he appeared in Adam at 6 A.M., Summertree, and Disney’s Napoleon and Samantha.
Michael Douglas shot to fame in The Streets of San Francisco, won the Oscar for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and won Best Actor for his iconic performance as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. He appeared in Basic Instinct, and most recently, the Ant-Man films and The Kominsky Method. So, let’s get to know the untold story of Michael Douglas, his wife, Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, and his children.