Checking in with MICHAEL DOUGLAS

Michael Douglas has certainly done his share of movie work, encompassing Oscar wins on both sides of the camera, but he’s also not averse to returning to the home screen. The son of fellow Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas (“Spartacus,” 1960), Michael had made some films before he largely built his fame on the 1970s ABC police drama “The Streets of San Francisco,” and his honors have included Academy Awards for producing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and acting in “Wall Street” (1987). Now, he’s back to series work by depicting the life and achievements of Benjamin Franklin in the Apple TV+ series “Franklin,” which is streaming new episodes each Friday; he is also an executive producer of the biographical drama. If it seemed that movies would have Douglas’s services exclusively after he left “The Streets of San Francisco” (for which he was Emmy-nominated three times) a year before its run ended, he demonstrated otherwise by hosting NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in 1984 and also appearing in specials. He also executive produced a mid-1980s ABC series based on the movie “Starman” (he was an executive producer of the film as well) and guest-starred on NBC’s “Will & Grace.” On top of all that, he also took his first role as Benjamin Franklin in the 2003 PBS series “Freedom: A History of US.” However, Douglas’s major return to TV was the 2013 HBO project “Behind the Candelabra,” for which he won a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award (among other accolades) for his portrayal of the entertainer Liberace. After that, Douglas tackled a series role again in the Netflix comedy-drama show “The Kominsky Method,” casting him as an actor-turned-acting coach. He earned another Golden Globe for the program, which reunited him with such previous movie colleagues as Kathleen Turner (“Romancing the Stone,” 1984) and Douglas’s close friend Danny DeVito (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). Now, “Franklin” is challenging Douglas as he plays a legendary figure who actually lived, something he rarely has done in his career — and that he has taken the mission seriously goes without saying. Birthdate: Sept. 25, 1944 Birthplace: New Brunswick, N.J. Current residences: New York, London and Mallorca Marital status: Married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones; they have a son and a daughter together, and he also has a son from an earlier marriage Movie credits include: “Ant-Man,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “And So It Goes,” “Last Vegas,” “Haywire,” “Wall Street,” “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” “Solitary Man,” “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” “You, Me and Dupree,” “The Sentinel,” “The In-Laws,” “It Runs in the Family,” “Don’t Say a Word,” “Traffic,” “Wonder Boys,” “A Perfect Murder,” “The Game,” “The Ghost and the Darkness,” “The American President,” “Disclosure,” “Falling Down,” “Basic Instinct,” “Shining Through,” “The War of the Roses,” “Black Rain,” “Fatal Attraction,” “A Chorus Line,” “Romancing the Stone,” “The Jewel of the Nile,” “The Star Chamber,” “It’s My Turn,” “Running,” “The China Syndrome,” “Coma,” “Napoleon and Samantha,” “Summertree,” “Adam at 6 A.M.,” “Hail, Hero!”