By MICHAEL DOUGLAS (Grand Central Publishing; 2026)
This long-in-coming autobiography by Michael Douglas appeared the same day as another celebrity memoir, DEVIL ON MY SHOULDER, written by “the Prince of Darkness” Alice Cooper. I haven’t read the latter, but say it’s highly likely that Douglas’ is the wilder book. Michael Douglas, keep in mind, is a legendary Hollywood ladies’ man in addition to a successful producer and movie star, and about ONE HELLUVA RIDE he has this to say: “I spent a significant portion of my career playing some version of the modern, flawed, American male. You’ll see from these pages that it wasn’t exactly a stretch for me.”
Douglas is the son of the famous actor-producer Kirk Douglas (1916-2020) and Diana Douglas (1923-2015), a mighty successful actress in her own right. Being raised by Kirk wasn’t always a pleasant experience, as he was given to unpredictable outbursts that had his son “sacrificing my self-expression to keep the peace.” Kirk and Diana’s early 1950s divorce further scarred the young Michael, who inevitably followed his parents into the screen trade.
Douglas’ early attempts at a filmic acting career, in the flops HAIL, HERO (1969) and SUMMERTREE (1971), were disastrous. He had better luck headlining the popular TV series THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO (1972-1977), whose co-star Karl Malden provided a nurturing and non-abusive father figure. When the show finished its run Douglas tried to restart his film career, but as producer only, with ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979), in which he cast himself in a supporting role. As with many of Douglas’s subsequent screen excursions, those films were bold, commercial and not a little controversial.
It took until 1984 for his next major success, the Robert Zemeckis helmed jungle romance ROMANCING THE STONE. That was a mighty fraught shoot, and its 1985 sequel THE JEWEL OF THE NILE proved even more difficult. Douglas scored another acting success with FATAL ATTRACTION, which set the tone for much of the remainder of a Hollywood career that was taken up largely with erotic thrillers and political dramas.
One could argue it’s the offscreen drama that really distinguishes the Michael Douglas story, and this book includes plenty of it. Douglas freely admits to having had a liking for marijuana in his early years, and a ravenous cocaine habit in his later ones. About the rumor that he’s a sex addict Douglas gives no credence, although he’s not shy about name-checking the many famous women he schtupped, including Brenda Vaccaro, ROMANCING THE STONE writer Diane Thomas, Kathleen Turner, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who became his wife in November of 2000—but before doing so demanded he break things off with the five(!) other women he was seeing at the time.
The Michael Douglas saga also provides a glimpse into the lives of the (very) rich and famous. From lavish homes in Santa Barbara, Italy and Bermuda, which Douglas and Zeta-Jones made their permanent home for a while (so they could “raise our children away from the limelight of Hollywood and New York”), to some truly amazing family vacations, the man has led a charmed life without question. But there were some sour notes, notably his son Cameron getting involved in drugs (a definite instance of Like Father, Like Son) and serving a seven year prison sentence, which occurred just as Douglas learned he had stage four tongue cancer, which led to a debilitating round of chemotherapy.
The above makes for riveting reading with all the necessary ingredients: gossipy revelation, heartfelt recollection and, most importantly, honest self-appraisal. In short, ONE HELLUVA RIDE more than lives up to its title.