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I think I got away with it
EXCLUSIVE: Michael Douglas talks frankly about his battle with cancer – and how it affected his marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones
Wearing a dove grey, lightweight suit and open-necked white shirt, Michael Douglas arrives five minutes early for our breakfast meeting at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. ‘I found a quicker exit from Grand Central Station,’ he explains, as he sits down and orders a black coffee.
He came by train? ‘Sure. It’s an hour from our house in Westchester County.’ He stops to consider. ‘I guess it’s a bit like the commute from Tunbridge Wells to London.’ Yes, but he’s Michael Douglas, for heaven’s sake. Doesn’t he bring all those commuters to an open-mouthed standstill? ‘No,’ he says, ‘because there’s a sort of mutual courtesy going on. I don’t catch their eyes and they don’t bother me. I absorb myself in the papers. Anyway, most people probably think I just look a bit like Michael Douglas but it can’t be him, he wouldn’t travel by public transport, would he?’
It tells you all you need to know about this utterly grounded A- list star. But spend a little time with this gently witty and supremely civilised man and it quickly becomes clear that he’s old school, the possessor of a set of good manners so deeply ingrained that they’ve long been second nature.
We’ll soon be able to check him out, up close and personal, when he submits himself to two hours of questioning by Jonathan Ross at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane later this month for An Evening With Michael Douglas. Ahead of his visit he’s in expansive mood today as he talks openly about his professional success and his seesaw private life – from an ultimately happy marriage to second wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, 47, to difficult chapters dealing with divorce, drugs, hotly denied rumours of sex addict ion and even a near-death experience.
Michael has never before spoken in such depth about his potentially fatal brush with cancer. In 2010 he began complaining of a pain behind his teeth. Two courses of antibiotics failed to clear up the trouble until, nine months after the initial consultation with his doctor, he went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist in Canada, where he was working at the time. ‘This man picked up a tongue depressor and inserted it into my mouth. He then looked me directly in the eye and I knew something bad was going on. He told me I’d need a biopsy and then referred me to an oncologist in New York who confirmed his suspicions: I had Stage 4 mouth cancer.
‘I remember my initial reaction was, “Could this be a death sentence?” But once the intensive chemo/ radiation programme was explained to me, I put those thoughts to the back of my mind and just concentrated on getting through the next eight weeks.’
As so often, the ‘cure’ was worse than the condition. ‘I spent two months lying on a couch as I fought this thing. I lost 40lb. I couldn’t eat normally so it was mostly soups and drinks through a straw. Your throat gets so painful people often opt to be fed through a tube in their stomach. But the drawback of that is that you forget how to swallow and have to acquire the skill all over again.’
What did he tell his younger children? Dylan was then ten, his sister Carys just seven. ‘I told them I had cancer which was why they’d have to get used to me lying around on the couch. I also took them to where the radiation took place and to see the mask I had to wear. One of the beauties of my profession is that my children know what I do at work. They see me on screen; they visit me on set. In just the same way I
‘Not all Brits would be as open about bipolar as her’
wanted to take the mystery out of my cancer treatment, to do everything possible to prevent them being frightened about what was happening.’
And what about the effect on Catherine? ‘I know she felt pretty helpless but she was as stoic as she could be. We had a commitment to go and play golf in China. Well, that was out of the question for me but I encouraged her to go. There was nothing to be gained from her staying at home so, in the end, she took her parents and brother. I remember feeling relieved that I could stay home and just get on with the treatment.’
Finally, the gruelling weeks of chemotherapy combined with radiation came to an end. ‘What they don’t tell you, of course, is that when the course is completed you don’t instantly feel better again. It takes you some time to start feeling anything like normal.’
The day eventually dawned for his first check-up, six months after the diagnosis. ‘Mercifully, after they’d examined me and put me through X-ray machines and all sorts, they told me I seemed to be free of the cancer, and there was no evidence of any secondary cancerous activity elsewhere in my body.’ With his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones Now, he goes for a yearly check-up and there’s been no recurrence. He touches the wooden table. ‘I think, I hope, I’ve got away with it but I know how lucky that makes me.’ He pauses. ‘My dear friend Larry Hagman wasn’t so fortunate. I remember how thrilled he was when a new series of Dallas was commissioned; he couldn’t wait to play JR again. But then he was diagnosed with the same cancer as me. He decided to submit himself to a mild version of the treatment I went through because he wanted to have enough energy to do the show. Sadly, Larry didn’t make it.’
For all her outward show of stoicism, the fall-out from her husband’s cancer battle tipped Catherine’s emotional equilibrium off-balance, triggering exaggerated mood swings. In 2011, she checked herself into a mental health clinic and two years later finally went public about what had turned out to be her bipolar diagnosis. After six months of treatment, she said, she’d come to a better understanding of her condition. She was widely praised by associated charities for her openness on the subject. ‘Catherine was extraordinary,’ says Michael now. ‘She really took hold of the issue in a way, with due respect, that is not always true of the Brits. I may be totally wrong but I think mental health is better understood in the States, more out in the open, if you like.’ What Catherine went through was either going to force a wedge between them – or a stronger bond. ‘ In the end,’ says Michael, ‘we were able to see the bigger picture and move on. Now, we’re closer than ever.’
He laughs when I ask if the 25-year age gap gets more or less difficult. ‘I don’t think “difficult” is the word. But if I forget a name or a date, she’ll look me in the eye and I’ll say, “Yes, dear, I know.” We joke about when I reach my 80s and she’s wheeling me around and I’m saying, “Whoa! Where are we going?” And she’ll say, “Cartier, darling, it’s your favourite store. Remember?” It’s important to keep a sense of humour about these things.’
So Michael got a second chance at life just like he got a second stab at marriage (his first wife was diplomat’s daughter Diandra Luker). What makes Catherine The One? ‘Apart from the obvious externals, she has a wonderful, warm Welsh heart. She also has a great work ethic and she’s in the same occupation as me. So she has an inherent understanding of what I have to deal with – the schedules, the incessant insecurities and so on. She also has deep family roots which have helped her become an extraordinary mother.’
In 1998, Michael had first become aware of Catherine via a private screening of The Mask Of Zorro, her breakthrough film with Antonio Banderas. ‘To my mind, I hadn’t seen anyone since Julie Christie who had all that. It wasn’t just her looks but her persona.’ His old friend Danny DeVito introduced them the following day at the Deauville Film Festival in France. Michael’s opening line – ‘I want to father your children’ – was greeted coolly by Catherine. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to know it’s all true. Goodnight.’
The next day, she flew to the Isle of Mull off the west coast of Scotland to begin shooting a film, Entrapment, with Sean Connery. Waiting for her at the hotel was a bunch of roses with a short note from Michael: ‘I apologise if I stepped over the line.’ He chuckles at the memory. ‘I will be eternally grateful to that florist. To this day, I don’t know how they managed to get those flowers to the island so quickly.’
To understand what makes Michael Douglas tick, it’s necessary to go back to his childhood. His father Kirk, that giant of the silver screen, was a man who cast – who still casts – an extremely long shadow. ‘He was and is incredibly dynamic,’ says Michael, ‘larger than life, a very masculine man who loved women. As my mother quickly
‘We joke about Catherine wheeling me round in my 80s’
discovered. Within 18 months of him being in California while we remained on the East Coast, she’d seen enough to call time on the marriage.’ They divorced when Michael was seven, his younger brother, Joel, four.
It can’t have been easy for Michael, tentatively edging his way to maturity, seeing his father on screen slaying infidels and making love to a succession of beautiful women. ‘Looking back I’m amazed I became an actor. I look at Dylan and Carys now and they’re both completely comfortable on stage. I put that down to the confidence instilled in them by their mother. I always struggled desperately with self-confidence.’
Unsurprisingly. On one occasion, Kirk came to see Michael perform in a college production of As You Like It. ‘I played a messenger. I had to enter down the aisle of the auditorium and deliver my lines – unfortunately, as it turned out – right next to where my father was sitting. I managed to say, “My lord” with a reasonable amount of conviction but then babbled through the rest before running back up the steps and outside.’
Backstage, Kirk didn’t mince his words. ‘You were terrible,’ he told his son. ‘And I remember thinking, “How can I ever come close to being like this man, standing up and proclaiming, ‘I am Spartacus!’?” My father had confirmed everything I’d ever thought about my talent – or lack of it. I’ve often wondered why I pursued the idea of being an actor,’ he says. ‘I don’t mind admitting that, in the early days, I used to keep a waste basket in the wings to puke into before I went on stage. Crazy. Why was I beating myself up in this way?’
At 99, says Michael, his father is still going strong, still getting around courtesy of ‘a vicious walker with wheels’. And he’s still pretty sharp. ‘He doesn’t necessarily remember names but then neither do I and I’m 72. And he still likes to crack a joke.’ There is to be a big industry celebration for Kirk any time now, honouring his contribution to cinema as well as being a nod to his great age. For his 100th birthday in December there’ll be a lunch, says Michael, at Kirk’s house in California for close family and friends as well as for the people who’ve worked for him and his second wife, Anne, making their life as comfortable as possible in recent years.
There’s an echo of his own parents’ marriage in Michael’s first marriage to Diandra Luker, the sophisticated young Austrian diplomat’s daughter. They wed in March 1977. Michael was 32, Diandra 19. Their son, Cameron, was born in December 1978. ‘I was deeply immersed in my career and it’s fair to say she had no knowledge of Hollywood. We met in 1976 and yes, it was impulsive of us to marry so soon afterwards. Her parents were no longer together and I realise now that there hadn’t been a strong maternal presence in her life. So I think Diandra was obliged to assume too much responsibility in our marriage too soon.
‘Do I have regrets? Yes, of course. I was too bound up in my work but then I was doing well. I’d won an Oscar for producing One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975. I’d starred alongside Karl Malden in over 100 episodes of The Streets Of San Francisco. I then went on to win a second Oscar, as an actor this time, in Wall Street in 1987.’
Nor, like his father before him, was Michael immune to the charms of his leading ladies. He had a long and welldocumented affair, for example, with Kathleen Turner with whom he first starred in Romancing The Stone and subsequently in The Jewel Of The Nile and The War Of The Roses. ‘We were like bandits, onscreen and off,’ he once confessed in an interview.
Michael isn’t keen to dwell on this aspect of his past although he doesn’t deny he wasn’t always faithful to Diandra. But he can’t resist adding, ‘I think it both fair ourto say parts.’that liaisons Whatever, happenedthe mar-on riage teetered for many years with Michael developing too strong a dependence on drink and drugs.
In September 1992, he checked himself into the Sierra Tucson clinic in Arizona for a 30-day programme principally to treat alcohol abuse. Unfortunately for him, he says, the clinic also treated people with sexual addictions. Basic Instinct had been released that year and had acquired an instant notoriety courtesy of the scene where the camera treats the audience to the sight of a knickerless Sharon Stone c rossing and uncrossing her legs. Five years earlier, the sexually explicit Fatal Attraction had been a big hit. The semi- erotic thriller, Disclosure, with Demi Moore was in pre-production. So, three sexually explicit films in just seven years, each with Michael as the leading man, proved too tempting for one downmarket newspaper – British, as it happens. ‘They put two and two together and made five. We all know there’s mileage, not to mention increased sales, in those sorts of stories. Sex sells. And it made a much better story for me going into rehab than simply abusing alcohol. It was unfortunate, though, because it came at a time when I was pretty vulnerable. I was working hard to get my life back on track so to come out of the clinic and have to deal with all that didn’t help. It wasn’t true but what can you do? Once it’s been said, it’s out there.
‘ But one of the advantages of being second generation and with a high profile is that you try and learn from what your own father went through. I’ve long ago accepted that incidents like that are the price of fame. This is the downside of living in the spotlight. You’re forced to sacrifice a degree of your privacy.
‘There are those in this industry who self-promote their behaviour to increase their profile rather than relying on their work. Then there are the rest of us who prefer to let our work speak for itself. In the end, though, and despite your best efforts, you have to take the rough with the smooth.
‘In a way, there’s a parallel with Hillary Clinton. The presidential election is really hotting up and she’s still saddled with this accusation that she’s untrustworthy. This dates back to when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas and a detractor [a local newspaper] branded him Slick Willie. Now the issue of whether she can be trusted has been transferred to Hillary with no basis whatever.’
He knows Donald Trump, although not well. ‘He and I have played golf together and there’s no doubt he can be a charming man. He certainly has a good sense of humour.’ As a matter of fact, the two shot a scene together for the second Wall Street film. In the end, it didn’t make the final cut although director Oliver Stone is on record as saying that Trump was a pleasure to work with. Michael also knows the Clintons. ‘We’re not intimate friends but I’m a lifelong Democrat. So who would I like to be America’s next President? Hillary, without question. She has huge experience. She’ll make a spectacular President.’
In the meantime, we can look forward to seeing Michael in the flesh on the London stage. The choice of venue has a special significance, because it’s where Catherine got her big break while still a teenager in a production of 42nd Street. Sadly, though, she won’t be able to see her husband when he’s in town because she’ll be in LA shooting a TV movie, Feud, in which she plays Olivia de Havilland opposite Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis.
Might Michael and Catherine ever contemplate appearing on the same stage? ‘We’ve been approached and a bit of me is tempted. I started in theatre, as did my father before me, and I like the idea that you can polish your performance as you return to it each night. Catherine was in A Little Night Music on Broadway in 2010 – she won a Tony for it – but theatre’s an exhausting schedule and, in most cases, a sixmonth minimum commitment.’
He’s currently working in a producing capacity on a couple of films while also developing ideas for TV projects. ‘I’m also enjoying a relationship with Marvel. There was Ant-Man which came out last year and there’s another one in the offing. The truth is I like to act. There’s no question of retiring; it’s not in my lexicon. Thank goodness, though, there seem to be a number of parts these days for older actors.’
His face creases into that familiar smile. Am I looking at a happy man? ‘Very much so. I like the way things are going. Catherine and I adore our two kids and we’re so proud of them. They both want to be actors and we’ve seen enough of them on stage to know they’ve got it. I know I would say that but it’s true. You’ll be hearing from them. I have no doubt about it. Catherine has also embraced my older son, Cameron, who’s had a difficult time with drugs issues down the years but who’s recently out of federal prison and is doing well. So this is a great time for the family.’
He feels incredibly blessed, he says. ‘Having cancer has given me a much better sense of how I choose to live each day. I’ve always been someone who likes to plan ahead. Now, I tend to live more in the moment. I’m much more conscious of how I want to spend my time.’ Which is how? He doesn’t hesitate. ‘Balancing my life with Catherine and the kids with my work,’ he says simply. ‘In that order.’ For tickets to An Evening With Michael Douglas see rutlive.co.uk or call 0844 412 4657. Exclusive to ticket line.co.uk, ticket holders can purchase an exclusive photo opportunity with Michael at time of booking; spaces are limited. Tickets £250 (subject to booking fees) plus seat price.
‘I tend to live more in the moment after the cancer’