Michael Douglas

by Marc Eliot

  When it was Kirk’s turn to take the stage, he was his usual charming if heavy-handed self. “I’m a little bit confused. I’m too young to have a son getting a lifetime achievement award. I’m so proud of my son Michael. I don’t tell him that much often.”

  Many of Michael’s former co-stars showed up to pay tribute—even Bob Dylan, who still carries around the Oscar he won for “Things Have Changed” from Wonder Boys and displays it onstage at every concert he gives. He was a “surprise” guest and played an acoustic solo version of “Things Have Changed.”

  Martin Sheen took the stage to remind the audience of the night’s honoree’s extensive humanitarian work.

  Michael was the last to speak, concluding the evening by expressing his ongoing theory of movie star science by saying he was grateful for the “great genes” his parents had blessed him with. “I want to thank you both [Kirk and Diana] and I love you both.” He then made it official by announcing that he was going to star in the sequel to Wall Street, to be directed once again by Oliver Stone; the news surprised the audience and brought one final standing ovation.

  Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps had found renewed interest at Fox. Stone needed Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps to help restore him to the A-list of mainstream directors. After going through a number of writers and scenarios—one that for a time relocated the entire production to China, which neither Michael nor the Chinese government cared for—the script was restructured with the film beginning as Gekko is released from federal prison after serving an eight-year sentence. Its opening scene has him passing through the prison gates, looking older, downtrodden, and lost in the wilderness of his newly reclaimed freedom (a nice metaphor for where Stone had found himself after his career had floundered—picking up the story of Gekko is picking up his own story).

  He soon discovers his daughter is engaged to Jake Moore (more money?), a young, money-hungry wanna-be reminiscent of Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) from the original Wall Street, played by that week’s current Hollywood hotshot Shia LaBeouf. The film’s overly convoluted plot (a Stone signature) has a repentant Gekko trying to make up for his former greed-driven crimes by steering LaBeouf on the road to honest moneymaking and at the same time trying to reconcile with his daughter.

  Somewhere buried among all the quick-cuts of computers and trading floors is a love story between LaBeouf’s character and Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), who remains angry at her father for the suicide of her brother while Gordon was in prison. Part of the drama of the film is the conflict caused between LaBeouf’s emergent greed, his Gordon Gekko side, and his genuine love for Carey, who doesn’t like the resemblances she sees between her boyfriend and her father, whom she stopped talking to when he went to prison. The rest of it is essentially a replay of the original—the attractive but losing game of Wall Street greed, the inevitable saving grace of redemption.

  Directed by Stone from a script by TV and independent film screenwriter Allan Loeb (also a licensed stockbroker), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was produced during the summer and early fall of 2009 for $70 million and was promoted less as Oliver Stone’s than as Michael’s return to mainstream moviemaking, reprising a role that had won him his Best Actor Oscar and just might cap his comeback with another one for the same role.3

  Catherine, meanwhile, had agreed to star in the 2009 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, a concert-style show loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night. As Desirée, she would have the plum song of the score, “Send in the Clowns.”

  Both the show and the movie were New York–based projects. Realizing they were both going to be committed to a long stay in New York, Michael and Catherine agreed to move back full-time to the Central Park West apartment and enroll the children in private schools in Manhattan. Michael began production on the film as Catherine began rehearsals for a December opening.

  IN THE MIDST of all this, on July 28, 2009, Cameron, thirty years old, was arrested again, this time by the Drug Enforcement Agency, for possession of half a pound of methamphetamine and charged with the far more serious intent to distribute.

  The bust was the result of a three-year sting operation. The authorities had known he was using since 2007, almost from the first time post-rehab. Using phone taps, they knew when Cameron was selling, even the code he used to disguise his transactions. He always referred to meth as “pastry” or “bath salts,” as in “Did you get a chance to, like, smell any of the salts?” Before the capture, one friend who had run into him just days before said, “He came up to hug me and I didn’t recognize him. He was pasty and heavy. The familiar spark was gone.… He had some big shoes to fill, and it haunted him. Cameron was desperately in need of love—as if it was an out-of-reach thing for him.”

  The arrest gave Michael another dose of insecurity about his role in Cameron’s life, and a familiar combination of denial and self-pity. Was it his fault that Cameron had been arrested again for drugs? Could he have done more to prevent his son from falling back into such an existence? “I’ll assume whatever responsibilities I have to,” Michael said at the time. “Would it have been better to have been around more? Absolutely. There were absences. I was no angel.”

  Cameron pled guilty, and Michael arranged bail for him for house arrest until the April 2010 sentencing. In January, Cameron was arrested again, this time for violating bail when his girlfriend was caught smuggling heroin to him inside an electric toothbrush.

  COINCIDENTALLY, Michael’s role in the Wall Street sequel involved a man full of remorse who has lost a son to suicide and is having a difficult relationship with his rebellious daughter, who can’t forgive him for her brother’s untimely passing. Ironically, as an acting prop, Cameron’s tragedy and Eric’s as well were a big help to Michael while he was making the film. But as a mirror that reflected his own perceived failures in helping to save both of them, their fates were a total emotional disaster.

  And yet all of it was a mere prelude to the annus horribilis that was about to come down on Michael and Catherine.

  1 It never happened.

  2 Budget: IMDB; gross: Box Office Mojo.

  3 Stephen Schiff, presumably brought in to help Loeb write the script, received co-writer credit.

  CHAPTER 22

  If I’d known what a big shot Michael was going to be, I’d have been nicer to him when he was a kid.

  —KIRK DOUGLAS

  Hardly any second-generation people have succeeded. It’s a minefield of disasters, of broken careers and self-destruction out there.

  —MICHAEL DOUGLAS

  SEPTEMBER 25, 2009, MICHAEL’S SIXTY-FIFTH birthday and Catherine’s fortieth, was the start of what each hoped would be auspicious career years. Michael had finished Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and felt confident it was strong enough to mark a successful return to making big films.

  On December 13, Catherine opened as Desirée in the revival of A Little Night Music on Broadway to glowing reviews, both for the show and for her. Ben Brantley, in his New York Times review, called it “a weekend in the country with Eros and Thanatos” and wrote what amounted to a love letter to Catherine. It was a Christmas season that seemed for Michael and Catherine, separately and together, drenched in snow-white perfection. With Michael back making big-time movies, and Catherine back on Broadway, everything for the moment seemed right.

  In February 2010, Soderbergh asked Michael to do a cameo in Knockout, an ensemble action thriller to be shot mostly in Ireland. Although Catherine was still appearing in A Little Night Music, she encouraged him to do it, and told him that she would try to fly over as often as she could. When finished, Knockout’s jittery style (Soderbergh loves to shoot hand-held, holding the camera himself) and complex plot couldn’t find a satisfactory distributor for the summer. Soderbergh changed the film’s name to Haywire, made some more cuts, and planned a series of film festival releases that later helped it gain a commercial one. (Haywire was released in January 2012 to mixed reviews a
nd poor box office.)

  AND THEN, a few months into 2010, the darkness got darker. Cameron’s defense team appeared to try to shift the emotional guilt to Michael and Kirk by describing Cameron as a lonely kid who lived in fear “of being compared to his father and his grandfather.” It was not an easy thing for Michael to sit through. Then, in April 2010, he had to make the one appearance he dreaded but could not avoid, in federal court in Lower Manhattan to hear sentence passed on Cameron, who had been convicted for attempting to distribute illegal substances. The federal guidelines called for a ten-year minimum sentence.

  As Michael watched, Cameron stood before U.S. District Court judge Richard Berman and told the court he was sober for the first time in his adult life and grateful for the chance to get clean. Judge Berman listened as Cameron continued: “Firstly, I would like to apologize to my family and my loved ones for putting them through this nightmare of my making—and for my behaviors that have caused a rift between us in the past. I would also like to apologize to the Court for my decisions and my actions that put me in front of you here today, Your Honor.

  “But, I would like to ask you for an opportunity to be a productive family member and a good role model to my brothers and sisters during this time in their life when they’re maturing from small children to young men and women so I can be there for them for whatever may occur in their lives; for advice, guidance, support, or just somebody to talk to and maybe be able to steer them in the right direction.

  “Nothing, Your Honor, is more important to me than my family and the goals that I have set for myself and I feel adamant that I will not let myself be led astray by my warped thinking and false pretenses due to my long heroin addiction. I envelop my mind, instead, with the idea that I want to take the right path, the true path and the path that I know is well within my reach. And I know this because I was presented with some opportunities earlier in my life and at the time I didn’t—I wasn’t able to see how valuable they were and how rare they were. As a result, I squandered a lot of them, which was, you know, probably started, you know, where I am today; a lot of mistakes and missed opportunities, you know?

  “I miss, so dearly, being involved in my true passion in life which brings me true happiness and fulfillment, which is being an entertainer and putting a smile on people’s faces or stirring some sort of emotion inside of them; ultimately trying to inspire people in some way whether it was through dancing as a youngster or hopefully music and acting in the future.

  “I believe, Your Honor, that things will be different this time because, number one, most importantly, I feel that I have the full support of my family and the people that are important in my life; number two, because obviously I know where this life can go and if I should be so fortunate to have another chance, I would never squander that opportunity because I know how fruitful my life can be; and thirdly, I will never settle for anything less than what I know myself to be capable of. I feel like it is my duty. And that’s all I have to say.”

  It was excruciating for Michael to have to sit helplessly and listen to Cameron’s splintered plea for mercy.

  Before he passed sentence, Judge Berman acknowledged the thirty-seven character-reference letters he had received (not unusual in pre-sentencing, especially when celebrities or their children are involved), including an especially emotional one from Diandra, who squarely put the blame on Michael for not being there when Cameron was a boy in need of a father: “Being Michael’s son and Kirk Douglas’s grandson was an incredible cross for Cameron to bear. My son felt defeated before he could even get out of the gate.”

  In his letter, Kirk, then ninety-three, asked the judge to spare his grandson from years in prison, saying he hoped to see him rebound from his troubles “before I die.… I’m convinced Cameron could be a fine actor,” Kirk Douglas wrote. “I hope I can see that happen before I die. I love Cameron.”

  In his five-page handwritten letter, which he read aloud, Michael acknowledged once more the lifelong struggle he had had to face as the son of a Hollywood star, and how he had failed to save his son from the same emotional fate. “Dear Judge Berman, I don’t want to burden you with a litany of my son Cameron’s rehab history, beginning at 13. He’s an adult and responsible for his own life. We do know, however, that genes, family, and peer pressure are all a strong influence on a substance abuser. Many drug dealers come from families who have struggled with addiction. Few receive leniency because of it. Cameron grew up a single child in a bad marriage.” Michael, in effect, blamed both himself and Diandra for Cameron’s problems. Cameron had a “father whose career took him away from home, and a young mother without any parenting skills handed down from her own parents.… I have some idea of the pressure of finding your own identity with a famous father. I’m not sure I can comprehend it with two generations to deal with.… For the past eight months, I have cherished my two hour a week in person conversation with Cameron at the MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center]. He’s sober! I get to witness the wonderful young man he can be. He maintains his spirit, blames no one but himself, and recognizes his criminal activity began with his heroin use.… Cameron found his family in the gang mentality.”

  Before sentencing, Judge Berman said, “The missives indicate problematic parenting by both his mother and father in the forms of parental absence and distance, parental immaturity and drug and alcohol abuse in the immediate or extended families.” He then sentenced Cameron to five years, half the ten that were expected and mandatory, and five years of close supervision, the second five the equivalent of parole, and warned him that this was his “last chance to make it.”

  As part of his sentence, Cameron had to forfeit $300,000, more than half of what his lawyers said was his estimated $500,000 net worth; he also had to pay another $25,000 as a fine and upon his release serve an additional 450 hours of community service.

  After court, a somber Michael Douglas was overheard telling his lawyer he thought the sentence was fair. He then helped guide a bewildered-looking Diandra through a crush of photographers to a waiting car.1

  IT TOOK SEVERAL months before Michael made one of his very few public statements about Cameron’s imprisonment: “There was a deep sense of relief that as a serious substance abuser, as long as he’s been, and how sick, that he was going to get clean. He’s in excellent health, feeling very good and empowered. He’s finally making this commitment to change. He’s been dealt a few hands. He took the news fine.”

  As for how he was coping with his son’s plight, Michael said, “Anybody who has a relative or child in substance abuse has some idea of what this feels like. This is one of those worst-case scenarios. It will ultimately be a painful lesson.… [M]y priorities were very similar to my father’s. Career first.”

  THAT AUGUST, Michael revealed to the world he had been diagnosed with stage four throat cancer, the most advanced form of the disease, nearly always fatal, and was about to begin a difficult two-month regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.

  Michael likely would have preferred to keep the diagnosis private, but after persistent rumors had spread throughout the entertainment industry that he might be dying, he decided to do an end run around the gossips and stop the whispers by going public with the grim news.

  He had booked an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman for September 1, 2010, originally to promote the September 24 release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Looking relaxed and happy and holding a bottle of water in one hand, Michael was dressed resplendently in a white suit with pink shirt, looking as if he had just stepped off his yacht in Bermuda. During the loud ovation that greeted him, he sat down and talked briefly with Dave about the new movie. Then, in response to Dave’s question about how things were going other than that, giving Michael an easy opening to a difficult subject that everybody already knew about, Michael almost casually announced that he was indeed suffering from throat cancer. “Yeah, I’ve got cancer,” he said. “I got cancer.… I found out three weeks ago. It’s throat and
I’ve just finished my first week of radiation.” As for his stage four diagnosis, Michael told Letterman, “The big thing you’re always worried about is it spreading, so I am head and neck. I am above the neck, so nothing’s gone down, and the expectations are good.”

  Letterman then asked Michael if he smoked, to which Michael replied, with a weary chuckle, “This particular type of cancer is caused by alcohol and drinking.” Letterman asked him about his chances for recovery, to which Michael replied, “The percentages are very good. I would hate to say, but right now, it looks like it should be 80 percent, and with certain hospitals and everything, it does improve.”

  Michael’s appearance on Letterman made headlines around the world. He had always had an aura of youth about him, something he shared with most baby boomers (although he was born a year and a half before the official start of that generation). Now he had laid down the gauntlet, telling the world he intended to beat his cancer.

  MOST AFTERNOONS, Michael sat alone in his darkened living room, staring out the window at the treetops of Central Park through a crack in the drawn curtains, sipping frequently from an aloe-based drink to soothe the sores that had developed in his mouth. As one witness reported, he was “clearly in pain.”

  Michael said, “The radiation kills the cancer, but it kills everything else too. The white blood cells, the red blood cells. Sores start forming in your mouth, then lesions, and then you can’t swallow. People then either get fed through their stomach, or you fight it and go through it by drinking liquids.… I’ve decided to fight it.

  “What I’ll really be struggling with the last few weeks is the weight loss. Because you can’t eat solids and you can’t swallow.”