Deep Dive with Michael Douglas on Legacy

Kelly Corrigan (0:10)

Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders, I'm Kelly Corrigan, and today, I am just having the most fun talking to Oscar-winning actor and Hollywood legend, really, Michael Douglas. Michael spent much of his childhood on film sets because movies were the family business. His father was Kirk Douglas, forever remembered as Spartacus. And after some time as a California hippie, Michael followed his dad into acting, and over the years, he has given us the ruthless Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, a charming adventurer in Romancing the Stone, a politician with heart in The American President, and a man at his breaking point in Falling Down. His new book, a memoir called One Helluva Ride, tells his life story through 12 of his best-known films. And behind the movies is a family story, a marriage, a divorce, rehab, a fight to save a son who eventually went to prison for seven years, two of which were spent in solitary confinement, a second marriage based on mutual respect. Michael's book also tells the story of his battle with stage four cancer. This is a conversation fundamentally about fathers and sons, about what we owe the people we love, and how long it can take to see what has been in front of us all along. Here's my conversation with Michael Douglas, recorded on stage at Sixth & I in Washington, DC.

Just another Wednesday night for me.

Hi, welcome to Washington, DC in Sixth & I.

Michael Douglas (1:46)

Wow, thank you Kelly. Nice, what is this fantastic?

This is just beautiful. Thank you all for coming. This is a real treat.

Kelly Corrigan (1:56)

So I read your book in a day, so I got nothing else done for a day.

Michael Douglas (2:01)

Whoa.

Kelly Corrigan (2:02)

And also I just watched three of your movies.

Michael Douglas (2:05)

All in a day?

Kelly Corrigan (2:06)

No, the next day.

Michael Douglas (2:07)

In a night, okay.

Kelly Corrigan (2:08)

I watched Wall Street and I was, you know, mad at you. And then I watched Basic Instinct and I had other feelings about you.

And then I watched American President and it was like a palate cleanser.

Michael Douglas (2:24)

It's a good way to end it up. Yeah.

Kelly Corrigan (2:27)

I cleaned it up.

I wanted to talk first about fathers and sons. You were the son of Spartacus, which is a very weird way to come into the world. And you said that the sort of paradox of your life is, quote, I wanted to distinguish myself from my father and I wanted to be close to him. Give me three adjectives for Kirk Douglas behind the scenes as a dad, and then tell me how long did it take you to become close to him.

Michael Douglas (3:00)

Three adjectives. Intense, dynamic, omnipotent.

He was a feast to begin with. He was just an incredible ball of energy, and strength, and survival techniques. And a lot to deal with as a young kid.

Kelly Corrigan (3:25)

And he grew up very poor. The son of an alcoholic.

Michael Douglas (3:29)

Right. Well, to tell you briefly the family background.

The family is from Belarus, Russian Jews. I always thought that my grandfather came over in 1914 You know, the time of the Russian Revolution, the Cossacks were rallying everybody up and all that. I found out, one of those, Henry Gates, that TV show about your roots, finding your roots and everything. I did the show and found out that my grandfather, Kirk's father, came over in 1902, not 1914 And he had two other brothers, and they were in jail back home for bank robbery.

And so, it appears that my grandfather worked with his two other brothers as bank robbers, and he got out of the country, changed his name to Danielewicz, and came to the US in 1902

Kelly Corrigan (4:20)

So did you have it in your mind that he was running from Jewish persecution and then discovered that he was just a regular old bank robber?

Michael Douglas (4:28)

Exactly, exactly. So the image was, right, he was that exact. That was the first surprise. And my father was one of six. He was the only boy.

And my grandfather was illiterate, and my grandmother in terms of learning English at all. And as in my father's autobiography, biography, The Rag Man's Son, he was a junk man. He had a horse and a wagon. And as far as I can tell, he had very little attention to any of the kids. He would finish his day, lived up on top of a hill. And the story is that his horse was so trained, there was a bar at the bottom of the hill, he'd just get off at the end of the day, slap the rear of his horse. The horse would go up by himself, and he'd go into the bar.