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50 things you didn't know about Michael Douglas.
1. Michael Douglas is an American actor best known for his roles on TV's Streets of San Francisco and in the films Wall Street, Fatal Attraction and Wonder Boys.
2. Douglas is a son of movie star Kirk Douglas.
3. Won an Academy Award for Wall Street.
4. Douglas married actress Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2000.
5. Couple separated but working on their marriage in 2013.
6. His middle name is after his father Kirk.
7. Michael grew up with three brothers: Joel, Peter and Eric.
8. Studied drama at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and the American Place Theatre.
9. Began his Hollywood career as an assistant director on some of father Kirk Douglas's 1960s films.
10. Directed two episodes of the show The Streets of San Francisco.
11. Served as executive producer for Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which went on to win five Academy Awards.
12. Starred with Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon in the film The China Syndrome, which he also co-produced.
13. Landed his first leading man role in Romancing the Stone in 1984.
14. In 1988, Douglas formed a production company, Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc.
15. Douglas earned critical acclaim for his starring role as a rumpled novelist and English professor in Wonder Boys.
16. In 1994, he signed a development deal at Paramount that included The Ghost and the Darkness, The Game and A Perfect Murder.
17. Was honored as the recipient of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille Award for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field."
18. Filmed the movie Last Vegas with several Hollywood legends, including Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline.
19. Douglas was a heavy smoker.
20. Had developed a tumor and was told by doctors that he would have to undergo eight weeks of chemotherapy.
21. Douglas attributed the cancer to a combination of stress, his previous alcohol abuse, and years of heavy smoking.
22. In November 2010, Douglas's doctors put him on a special weight-gain diet due to excessive weight loss that had left him weak.
23. On January 11, 2011, he said in an interview that the tumor was gone, though the illness and aggressive treatment had caused him to lose thirty-two pounds.
24. Douglas married Diandra Luker in 1977.
25. When Douglas married Luker she was just 19-year old.
26. Luker is the daughter of an Austrian diplomat.
27. The couple had one son Cameron.
28. Couple later divorced.
29. On November 18, 2000, Douglas married Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
30. The couple had a son, Dylan Michael Douglas, and daughter Carys Zeta Douglas.
31. Douglas is active in promoting human rights.
32. His work in this area includes serving as a United Nations messenger of peace.
33. His mother is actress Diana Love Dill.
34. His parents met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
35. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Chavusy.
36. His mother was from Devonshire Parish, Bermuda, and has English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, French, Belgian, and Dutch ancestry.
37. Douglas's maternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill, served as Attorney General of Bermuda, as a Member of the Parliament of Bermuda (MCP), and as commanding officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery.
38. Zeta-Jones and Douglas share birthday.
39. Douglas is 25 years older than Zeta-Jones.
40. Douglas, the son of a Jewish father and an Anglican mother, was not raised with a religious affiliation, but stated in January 2015 that he now identifies as a Reform Jew.
41. His son, Dylan, had a Jewish Bar Mitzvah ceremony.
42. Douglas has been selected as the recipient of the 2015 Genesis Prize, a $1 million prize, awarded by the Genesis Prize Foundation.
43. Douglas plans to donate the prize money to activities designed to raise awareness about inclusion and diversity in Jewish life, and to finding innovative solutions to pressing global and community problems.
44. Douglas is a U.S. citizen by birth in the United States and has Bermudian Status.
45. Douglas was involved in a serious skiing accident which sidelined his acting career for three years.
46. In 2004, Douglas and Zeta-Jones took legal action against stalker Dawnette Knight, who was accused of sending violent letters to the couple that contained graphic threats on Zeta-Jones's life.
47. Knight claimed she had been in love with Douglas and admitted to the offenses, which took place between October 2003 and May 2004. She was sentenced to three years in prison.
48. Douglas and Zeta-Jones hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2003.
49. Douglas was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
50. He is an advocate of nuclear disarmament, a supporter of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, sits on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and is an honorary Board Member of the anti-war grant-making foundation Ploughshares Fund.
