How much is Michael Douglas worth?
| Net Worth: | $260 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actor |
| Date of Birth: | September 25, 1944 (age 78) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) |
About Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas is one of the most decorated actors in history. Being the eldest son of one of the greatest Hollywood icons, Kirk Douglas, he had big shoes to fill. While he probably didn’t become as great a Hollywood icon as his father, he far exceeded his successes as an actor, winning a lot more awards than his father did.
Michael Douglas was born in 1944 to Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill. His parents would separate before Michael Douglas would turn 10 years old. Due to his parents’ divorce as well as the nature of their jobs, Michael Douglas would move all over the country as a teenager.
He would finally graduate high school in Connecticut and would get a bachelor’s degree in Drama for California’s prestigious University of California Santa Barbara. Following that, he moved back to his town of birth, New York. He studied acting and following in his father’s footsteps, honed his craft.
Being the son of a legendary actor already gives you a lot of cachets, for sure. However, for Michael, you can truly say it was his work and his work alone that catapulted him into the A-list in group in Hollywood.
Following Fatal Attraction, he would star in the successful but also controversial hit, Basic Instinct (1992). The movie is probably best remembered for the scene where Sharon Stone crossed and uncrossed her legs, wearing san panties, but it was its depiction of lesbians and bisexuality that generated a lot of its discussion.
After Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, Douglas was at risk of being type-cast as an actor of violent sex, or some would say, in roles of an abuser of the sexual privilege that white American middle-class men were perceived to have. However, Wall Street, The American President, and The Wonder Boys, three very different films of very different genres would soon dispel that type-cast risk to establish Douglas as the consummate actor that he is.
While filming Wonder Boys, a movie about a novelist who struggled with writer’s block, Michael met his future wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, an accomplished actress from Wales, England, most famous for her role in the movie adaptation of the musical, Chicago. Michael Douglas was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Wonder Boys. Together with Catherine, the couple shone with star-power.
Michael has truly captured audiences as diverse as his films. His role as the very convincing Liberace alongside Matt Damon in Behind the Candelabra (2013) pleased arthouse audiences. The film garnered a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score even though it was not a huge box-office success.
In recent years, to quench the world’s thirst for all things superhero, Douglas appeared in Marvel Comic’s Avengers: Endgame and Ant-Man.
In total, Michael has won two Oscars, five Golden Globes, an Emmy award, and two lifetime achievement awards, one from the AFI and the other at the Golden Globes.
Douglas’s first forays as an actor were in films which were mostly forgettable. His very first role was in Hail, Hero! (1969), a Vietnam-era antiwar film. Today, the film is largely regarded as dated.
His successes came when he landed the role of Steve Keller on the popular television series The Streets of San Francisco (1972), co-starring veteran actor Karl Malden. Three years later in 1975, he purchased from his father the filming rights to Ken Kesey’s novel ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and produced what is today a cult phenomenon.
This launched Douglas in Hollywood as a driving force and won him Academy Awards in five major categories: best picture, best actor (Jack Nicholson), best actress (Louise Fletcher), best director (Miloš Forman), and best screenplay. From this astonishing success so early on in Douglas’s film career, he would go on to co-produce and star in some of Hollywood’s biggest box-office hits for the next two decades: Starman (1984), Flatliners (1990), Face/Off (1997), and The Rainmaker (1997). The Rainmaker raked in $45.9 million, alone.
Of the films Michael produced and starred in, The China Syndrome is a must-mention released in 1979. The neo-noir film was not only a heart-stopping thriller, it was also one of the smartest films ever written and produced. Its release coincided with the Three Mile Island nuclear incident, which took place just twelve days later.
China Syndrome told the story of a television reporter and her cameraman who discovered cover-ups of safety lapses in a nuclear plant outside Los Angeles. The subject matter of the film was very topical in the 70s, and brought Michael Douglas a lot of attention, cinematically, and interest from the general public. The film took in sales of an estimated $5 million in the first weekend of opening and grossed $51.7 million in box-office earnings in total.
The film that really launched Michael as a leading man was Romancing the Stone (1984). For director Robert Zemeckis, this was also his first box-office success, and success it was! The film grossed an incredible $115.1 million.
In 1987, Michael would release Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close, where he played a family man and attorney, Dan Gallagher, who because of a weekend fling with Glen Close’s Alexandra Forest resulted in near ruin for his family as Alex became obsessed with Gallagher and stopped at nothing to get her revenge at Gallagher whom she perceived to have taken his liberties with her and used her.
Fatal Attraction grossed an incredible $320.1 million worldwide. Michael’s next film of iconic status was Wall Street, which he reprised again in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). For his original role as the tycoon in Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, he received an Oscar for Best Actor.
With a list of superlative and iconic films, Douglas, in both producing and acting in them, not only became one of the most famous actors in the world but also one of the richest.
There are a lot of children of celebrities who are overshadowed by their mother or father’s image. Michael Douglas is not one of them. From a very early age, he knew what he wanted to do in life, and he wanted to make a name for himself. He even used pseudonyms early in his career to separate his work from that of his father’s. With talent, hard work, and the ability to hold an audience, he developed an extraordinary acting talent.
Films like The China Syndrome, Fatal Attraction, and Wall Street were unique products of their time, as they spoke to the threats and topical issues of the day. Michael’s early roles in these films captured his audience’s imagination and left an indelible impression that has served him throughout the rest of his career.
Summing-Up
As the son of one of the biggest icons Hollywood has ever had, he was under immense pressure to make something out of himself. That he did, but not in the ways people expected him to. He didn’t start in movies, he tried his luck as a TV actor and producer before he transitioned to the big screen. It was during those early years that he really, and without much pressure developed his acting charm and abilities. He also met a mentor, Karl Malden, that must have helped him in his career. Michael received three separate Emmy nominations, a feat that his world-famous father never accomplished.
