Michael Douglas

Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards, first as producer of 1975′s Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2009.

Douglas’s fortunes changed when he starred in the 1984 romantic adventure comedy Romancing the Stone. The film was a respectable hit and earned over $86,572,238 worldwide in box-office receipts and an additional $36 million in video rentals. This film also helped launch Kathleen Turner to stardom, reintroduced Douglas to the public as a capable leading man, and gave Bob Zemeckis his first box-office success. It was followed a year later in 1985 by a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. 1987 was another pivotal year for Douglas, one that won him massive attention as a serious actor. He starred in the thriller Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close, and the film became a worldwide hit. That same year he played the insidious tycoon Gordon Gekko in Wall Street for which he received an Academy Award as Best Actor. It was announced in April 2009 that Douglas would be reprising his role as Gekko in Wall Street 2 with the original film’s director Oliver Stone.

Douglas also starred as Mr. Rose, a successful lawyer similar to Gordon Gekko’s personality, in The War of the Roses, which featured previous co-stars Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In 1989, he starred in the hit international police crime drama Black Rain opposite Andy Garcia and Kate Capshaw and was directed by filmmaker Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) and filmed in Osaka.

In 1992, Douglas revived his slick, worldly character when he appeared alongside Sharon Stone in the film Basic Instinct. The movie was a huge hit, and sparked controversy over its depictions of bisexuality and lesbianism. In 1994, Douglas and Demi Moore starred in the hit movie Disclosure focusing on the hot topic of sexual harassment with a twist—Douglas plays a man harassed by his new female boss. In 1998, Douglas received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Douglas’s skill at character acting continued to make him one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, commanding a hefty sum for his roles. After the commercial failure of It Runs in the Family, a 2003 film that starred three generations of his family, Douglas did not star in a movie for three years, until the action-thriller The Sentinel in 2006. A year prior to the release of It Runs in the Family, he guest-appeared on the episode, “Fagel Attraction”, of the popular television sitcom Will and Grace, as a gay cop attracted to Will Truman (Eric McCormack); the performance earned Douglas an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Show. His Fatal Attraction co-star, Glenn Close, appeared in the following episode of the series and also earned an Emmy nomination for her performance.

Tags: Academy Award, Actor, actors, American, Comedy, Crime, Glenn Close, Producer