Michael Douglas will tell the story of his life and career in a new memoir.
Grand Central will publish the actor’s autobiography, as yet untitled, in the fall. It calls the book “a raw, career-sweeping memoir.”
Douglas, a son of actors Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill, first rose to fame as the co-star of the police drama series The Streets of San Francisco, which ran from 1972 to 1977. In 1984, he starred in Romancing the Stone, an adventure-comedy movie that became a box-office hit.
He went on to star in films including Wall Street, for which he won an Academy Award, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, The American President, and Wonder Boys. Last year, he said that he had not acted since 2022 and has “no real intentions of going back.”
His memoir, Grand Central says, “traces his journey from his father, Kirk Douglas’ shadow to his own stardom, revealing his personal challenges, including addiction that threatened his marriage and career, love affairs, as well as his son’s devastating drug addiction and prison sentence.” It will also focus on his triumphs, including “his victorious fight against stage-four cancer and his enduring twenty-five-year marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones.”
In a statement, Douglas said, “After being asked for many years, I’ve finally decided it’s time to tell my story on my own terms. Not the highlight reel, not the version shaped by headlines or box office numbers, but the real one. I’ve lived a life that unfolded in public while being deeply private at the same time, and there’s a difference. This is about where I came from, what I fought against, and what I chose for myself. Fame can blur the truth; this is my attempt to bring it back into focus.”
Douglas’ memoir is slated for publication on Oct. 6.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
