Douglas, Michael (1944-…), is an American motion-picture actor and producer. He became known for playing strong, morally flawed characters, many of whom are threatened by equally strong women. Douglas was the co-producer of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which won the 1975 Academy Award for best picture. He also won the 1987 Academy Award as best actor for his performance as Gordon Gekko, a greedy stock trader in Wall Street. In 2010, he repeated his role as Gordon Gekko in the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
Michael Kirk Douglas was born on Sept. 25, 1944, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is the son of the American actor Kirk Douglas. Michael graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1968. He began his career as an assistant director in the mid-1960’s and turned to acting on the stage, television, and movies a few years later. He made his film acting debut in Hail, Hero! (1969). From 1972 to 1976, Douglas starred in the television police drama “The Streets of San Francisco.” He increased his reputation as an actor and producer in The China Syndrome (1979), a movie about a nuclear power plant disaster. Douglas became a major star with his performances as the arrogant adventurer Jack Colton in Romancing the Stone (1984) and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985). Douglas also produced both movies.
Other films in which Douglas starred include Fatal Attraction (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Basic Instinct (1992), Disclosure (1994), The American President (1995), A Perfect Murder (1998), Wonder Boys (2000), Traffic (2000), The Sentinel (2006), King of California (2007), Solitary Man (2009), Haywire (2012), Last Vegas (2013), And So It Goes (2014), and Ant-Man (2015). In 2013, he won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of the American entertainer Liberace in the HBO cable television movie Behind the Candelabra.
