Michael Douglas
Acting
- Born:
- 1944-09-25
- Place of birth:
- New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Biography
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is a retired American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AFI Life Achievement Award. The elder son of Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill, Douglas earned his Bachelor of Arts in drama from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His early acting roles included film, stage, and television productions. Douglas first achieved prominence for his performance in the ABC police procedural television series The Streets of San Francisco, for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations. In 1975, Douglas produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, having acquired the rights to the Ken Kesey novel from his father. The film received critical and popular acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, earning Douglas his first Oscar as one of the film's producers. Douglas went on to produce films including The China Syndrome (1979) and Romancing the Stone (1984), for which he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy, and The Jewel of the Nile (1985). Douglas received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (a role he reprised in the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010). Other notable roles include in Fatal Attraction (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Basic Instinct (1992), Falling Down (1993), The American President (1995), The Game (1997), Traffic (2000), and Wonder Boys (2000). In 2013, for his portrayal of Liberace in the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Douglas starred as an ageing acting coach in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method (2018–2021), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best ctor—television series musical or omedy. He has portrayed Hank Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Ant-Man (2015). Douglas has received notice for his humanitarian and political activism. He sits on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, is an honorary board member of the anti-war grant-making foundation Ploughshares Fund, and he was appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 1998. He has been married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones since 2000. In July 2025, Douglas said that he was largely retired from acting, saying "I realized I had to stop [...] I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set". He added that while he was attached to one additional project and did not fully rule out future projects "if something special came up", he had no plans to work regularly again.
Known For
Filmography
Sock It to Me: The Legend of George Schlatter
Rob Reiner – Scenes from a Life
I Am Curious Johnny
Looking Through Water
America's Burning
Franklin
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Michael Douglas: The Prodigal Son
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Downwind
Il était une fois Champs-Élysées
What If...?
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Marvel Studios Legends
Basic Instinct: Sex, Death & Stone
Total Excess: How Carolco Changed Hollywood
Deauville et le rêve américain
Visible: Out on Television
Green Eggs and Ham
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Forman vs. Forman
Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate
It Takes a Lunatic
Avengers: Endgame
Sword-and-Sandal: The Story of the Period Epic
The Kominsky Method
Ant-Man and the Wasp
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: The Shocking Truth
Animal World
Michael Douglas: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival
Hollywood: No Sex, Please!
GRAND PRIX Driver
The Green Fog
Once upon a time on Wall Street
The Untameable Kirk Douglas
Unlocked
Ocean Vet
Ken San
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Ant-Man
The Late Late Show with James Corden
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
Hollywood Banker
Beyond the Reach
Richard Attenborough: A Life in Film
And So It Goes
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Last Vegas
The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
Behind the Candelabra
Close Up
Finding Your Roots
Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen
Haywire
The Streets of the Invisibles
The Jonathan Ross Show
Once Upon a Time… One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Asylum: An Empty Nest For The Mentally Ill?
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
America: The Story of Us
Miloš Forman: What Doesn't Kill You…
Solitary Man
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
The Day After Peace
A Call to Arms
Making of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Fog City Mavericks
Trumbo
Dinosaurs Alive
The Graham Norton Show
King of California
Black Rain: Making The Film
You, Me and Dupree
The Sentinel
Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema
A Father… A Son… Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Nos Bastidores de Hollywood
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
The China Syndrome: Creating a Controversy
The China Syndrome: A Fusion of Talent
Tell Them Who You Are
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Declaration of Independence
Celebrities Uncensored
The In-Laws
It Runs in the Family
Direct Order
Real Time with Bill Maher
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
Don't Say a Word
Blonde Poison: The Making of 'Basic Instinct'
In Search of Peace
One Night at McCool's
Traffic
Inside Traffic: The Making of 'Traffic'
The Directors: Milos Forman
Wonder Boys
One Day in September
Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special
Beckmann
Get Bruce!
Forever Hollywood
Will & Grace
The Magic Hour
A Perfect Murder
Completely Cuckoo
The Game
The View
Leute heute
The Ghost and the Darkness
The American President
Disclosure
Inside the Actors Studio
Falling Down
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Basic Instinct
Shining Through
Pebble Mill
Lennon: A Tribute
The Earth Day Special
If Dolphins Could Talk
The War of the Roses
Black Rain
LIVE with Kelly and Mark
cascadeurs de stars
The World's Greatest Stunts: A Tribute to Hollywood Stuntmen
Electric Blue 29
Wall Street
Fatal Attraction
A Chorus Line
The Jewel of the Nile
Jeopardy!
Romancing the Stone
Goldene Kamera
The Star Chamber
Champs-Elysées
Entertainment Tonight
Wetten, dass..?
It's My Turn
Running
The China Syndrome
The South Bank Show
Coma
Ciné regards
The Hollywood Greats
TVTV Looks at the Oscars
Saturday Night Live
People's Choice Awards
Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
Hassles and Hangups
The Streets of San Francisco
The Streets of San Francisco
Napoleon and Samantha
When Michael Calls
Film '72
Summertree
Adam at Six A.M.
Hail, Hero!
CBS Playhouse
Cast a Giant Shadow
The F.B.I.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Merv Griffin Show
The Mike Douglas Show
Tony Awards
The Oscars
This Is Your Life
Bambi
Golden Globe Awards
White Lies