HIS DAD’S SHADOW
Michael Douglas with
father Kirk at home in
1955, near right, and
on the set of Cast a
Giant Shadow in 1965.
Below: With mother
Diana, son Cameron,
and Kirk in 2003.
ichael Douglas has been
to jail. On this cold, gray afternoon, he’s just completed the
14-mile roundtrip from his home on Manhattan’s fashionable Upper West Side downtown to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where his son Cameron, 31, is being held
on a felony drug charge. “It’s been very painful,” he sighs,
settling into a deep red armchair with a cup of coffee. Outside the windows of his apartment, Central Park is a riot of
orange and red with the change of seasons. Inside, Douglas,
his bright blue eyes clear though a little sad, is dressed all in
black—black pants, black knit shirt, black shoes.
It’s hard to imagine that the irony of this moment is lost
on him. After all, in his next film, Wall Street 2: Money Never
Sleeps (out April 23), he re-creates one of his most indelible
screen roles, that of ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko.
At the end of Gekko’s first screen incarnation in 1987’s Wall
Street, he traded his Manhattan penthouse for a federal
prison. In the sequel, Gekko is free. What will Gekko do
with his second chance? That’s the crux of the plot, and for
Douglas, 65, who is getting his own fresh start as a husband,
father, and son, life right now is all about second chances.
“My career was the most important thing in my life,
followed by marriage and children,” he confesses. “And
it’s completely reversed now. I never anticipated starting a
family and the joy of raising kids at my age.”
M
For Douglas, the shot at a fresh start as hus-
band and father came after his 1995 split
with his wife of ultimately 23 years, Diandra.
He thought he’d settle into the life of a
single guy; a permanent relationship “wasn’t
on the grid,” he says. That all changed
one day in 1998 as he sat in a darkened
Hollywood screening room, watching a new film, The
Mask of Zorro.
Enter for
a chance to win
a trip and two tickets
to the premiere of
Wall Street 2.
See page 10 for
details.
