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Actor, producer, director. Born Michael Kirk Douglas, on
September 25, 1944, to actor Kirk Douglas and mother Diana Dill.
He is the brother of Joel, Peter, and Eric.
Douglas studied drama at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the
American Place Theatre. He began his Hollywood career as an
assistant director on some of father Kirk Douglas’ 1960s films.
After roles in several TV dramas, he gained notoriety by
costarring with Karl Malden in the 1970s television series The
Streets of San Francisco (ABC, 1972-77). He also directed two
episodes of the show. In 1975, Douglas was executive producer
for Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which won
five Academy Awards including Best Picture. In 1979 he
coproduced and starred with Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon in The
China Syndrome.
Douglas landed his first leading man role in Romancing the Stone
(1984), portraying Jack Colton, an Indiana Jones-type
adventurer. This successful teaming of Douglas with Danny DeVito
and Kathleen Turner led to a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile
(1985). The three worked again in The War of the Roses (1989), a
black comedy about an ugly divorce.
He made two films in 1987 which reflected a much darker side:
Fatal Attraction, in which he played an adulterer stalked by an
ex-lover (played by Glenn Close); and costarred in Oliver
Stone’s Wall Street as the corporate raider Gordon Gekko, whose
trademark slogan is “Greed is good.” Douglas won a Best Actor
Academy Award for this role.
In 1992 he continued exploring his dark side by costarring with
Sharon Stone in the thriller Basic Instinct.
In 1988, Douglas formed a production company, Stonebridge
Entertainment, Inc., which produced Joel Schumacher’s Flatliners
(1990) and Richard Donner’s Radio Flyer (1992). In 1993 he
produced Made in America, then starred as a sexually harassed
man in Michael Crichton’s Disclosure (1994), and as the titular
Chief Executive Officer in Rob Reiner’s The American President
(1995), costarring Annette Bening.
He signed a development deal at Paramount in 1994, which
included The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), The Game (1997) and
A Perfect Murder (1998). He executive-produced The Rainmaker
(1997) starring Matt Damon, and John Woo’s action film Face/Off
(1997). Douglas earned critical acclaim for his starring role as
a rumpled novelist and English professor in Wonder Boys (2000).
In the fall of 2001, Douglas headlined the thriller Don't Say a
Word. In 2003, Douglas starred in It Runs in the Family
alongside his dad Kirk, his mom Diana and his son Cameron. The
film, which faired poorly at the box office, told the story of a
multi-generation clan trying to get along. The following year,
Douglas followed in his father's footsteps as the recipient of
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille Award
for his “outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.”
Douglas is active in promoting human rights and serves as a
United Nations Messenger of Peace. He married Diandra Luker in
1977.
Actor, director, composer. Born December 31, 1937, in Port
Talbot, South Wales. Born in the same town in Wales as Richard
Burton, Hopkins was the only child of two bakers. A dedicated
pianist, he studied at the Cardiff College of Music & Drama in
Cardiff, Wales, after his graduation from high school. He then
spent two years in the Army before getting a job as an actor and
assistant stage manager at the Library Theater in Manchester. In
1961, Hopkins won a scholarship to the prestigious Royal Academy
of Dramatic Art in London.
Hopkins made his professional stage debut in a 1964 London
production of Julius Caesar. In 1967, he joined the National
Theater Company, where he understudied Laurence Olivier and
later replaced him in the lead role in a production of Dance of
Death. Hopkins’ various productions with the National Theater
over the years included David Hare’s Pravda (1985) and the title
roles in Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, and Macbeth.
In 1974, Hopkins appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning
Equus, written by Peter Shaffer. Over the course of his career,
he continued to work in theater as well as films, even though he
eventually became better known for his film work.
Hopkins made his big-screen debut in 1968’s The Lion in Winter,
starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn. He also appeared
as Claudius in the 1969 film version of Hamlet, starring Nicol
Williamson and directed by Tony Richardson.
They had one son, Cameron, but were separated in 1995 and later
divorced. Douglas married the Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones
on November 18, 2000; the couple have a son, Dylan Michael
Douglas, born in August 2000, and a daughter, Carys Zeta
Douglas, born in April 2003.
In late 2000, he and Zeta-Jones costarred (without sharing a
scene) in the Oscar-nominated film Traffic.
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