Even in jail, Catherine and dad were my rocks
Michael Douglas’s troubled son comes clean about his drugs shame, his prison hell – and the superstar stepmum he says has helped save his life
DRESSED in regulation khaki prison overalls, prisoner 70707054 was escorted into the soulless visiting room. In a grey, institutional space containing a few battered metal tables and hard plastic chairs, he sat down to greet the first visitors he had seen in weeks.
Surrounded by other inmates, some guilty of robbery, rape and murder, even the most hardened criminal or jaded prison guard could not have failed to cast a sideways glance at the glamorous couple waiting for him.
For there, sitting side-by-side across the table, were two of the most famous people on the planet: Oscar- winner Michael Douglas, 73, star of blockbusters such as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Wall Street, and his glamorous wife, Catherine ZetaJones, 48, proud possessor of her own Academy Award for her performance in Chicago.
The shuffling prisoner was Cameron Douglas ,39 and Michael’s eldest son – and he recalls it as a ‘surreal’ moment, but also one of the most poignant of his life.
‘My family never gave up on me, not for one second,’ he says in his first interview since leaving jail after serving seven years for drugs offences.
‘Catherine is a scrapper, she’s someone who came from Wales and clawed her way up to the very top through sheer talent and determination. She never gives up on anything and she didn’t quit on me. The love of my family got me through my darkest days.’
As a scion of Hollywood royalty – his grandfather is screen legend Kirk Douglas, hero of Spartacus – Cameron has the easy charm, trademark cleft chin and rugged good looks that should have offered him easy entry into the rarified world of the super famous. Yet for most of his adult life he has been branded the ‘ black sheep’ of the Douglas clan, a man who made lurid headlines for constant drug arrests and trips to rehab, who hit rock bottom in 2010 when he was sentenced to five years in jail for dealing in crystal meth and possessing heroin.
His sentence was almost doubled in 2011 when he was found trying to sell prescription-only drugs to other inmates. His life could have ended tragically, like so many others trapped in the grip of addiction. Yet today, Cameron is bursting with health and happiness. His once bloated body has been honed thanks to hours working out in prison gyms ‘to keep my sanity’. Clean and sober, he has a new baby daughter Lua Izzy with his Brazilian girlfriend Viviane Thibes, who stood by him through his incarceration in a romance that grew stronger through writing letters. He also credits his yoga instructor for helping steadily rebuild his life and, not least, the love and support of a family he admits he has ‘tested to the limits’. Today the khaki prison jumpsuit has been replaced by a bright yellow shirt and blue jeans as he relaxes in a serene rented home high in the Hollywood Hills filled with Buddha statues.
As he talks he strokes his beloved chocolate labrador called Truck.
‘I know how lucky I am to be sitting here talking to you ,’ he says, flashing a dimpled smile which instantly reminds you of his father.
‘ When that cell door slammed shut on the first night of my incarceration, I felt like I was in a bad dream, that I would wake up. But the dream carried on and got worse.
‘I lived a nightmare for seven years but the love of my family never wavered.’
Screen idol Kirk visited him early on during his grandson’s time at the high security Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Later, when he became too frail to travel he sent ‘ at least two letters a month’ reminding Cameron ‘you are not forgotten’.
Cameron, who has tattoos of both his father and grandfather on his torso, says of Kirk’s visit: ‘ Grandpa came and he wore shades the whole time, like a proper Hollywood star. He asked me, “How many fights have you be in – and are you winning?” He’s from tough stock.’
Kirk told his grandson: ‘Never give up the fight.’
In contrast with many in his position, Cameron refuses to blame anyone but himself for his woes: ‘I made bad decisions. I had little regard for my own life,’ he says.
Yet it is also true that during Cameron’s formative years, his father was at the height of his career making blockbuster films
She’s a Welsh scrapper who never gives up p – even on me