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Michael's "Game"
By LOUIS B. HOBSON
The Express
Sunday, September 7, 1997


CENTURY CITY -- Last year when Michael Douglas was filming the psychological thriller The Game, life began to imitate art.

In The Game - which opens in Edmonton next Friday - Douglas, 52, stars as a billionaire who gets involved in a life- altering game that threatens to strip him of his power, wealth and security.

At the same time cameras were rolling, Douglas's wife Diandra, 39, filed for divorce to end the couple's 20-year marriage.

Douglas's 18-year-old son Cameron entered a clinic to be treated for substance abuse while Douglas's 38-year-old half-brother Eric Douglas was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. A year earlier, Eric Douglas had been jailed for disrupting a flight from California to New Jersey.

Douglas's 80-year-old father, veteran screen actor Kirk Douglas, continues to struggle with the effects of a stroke he suffered in January 1996.

"It was absolutely uncanny," recalls David Fincher, the 34-year-old director of Seven and The Game.

"Between shots, Michael would be in his trailer on the phone talking with lawyers for his wife, son and brother and talking with his father.

"You knew he was in pain but he was the consummate professional. He never brought any of his personal pain on to the set of The Game."

Douglas admits "there's nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life. "My divorce was my game. It certainly put my life into perspective."

Though it had its bitter moments, Douglas insists the divorce is now amicable.

"Diandra and I are on good terms once again. She's in Spain. We've sold our Santa Barbara home and I'm moving back to New York. I plan to visit Diandra in Spain later this year and take in a bit of golf."

Douglas says that his son Cameron "is doing extremely well. I put my life on hold most of last year to help him.

"I tried to be as supportive and loving as I could. It's something I've learned from my father these past couple of years.

"Since his stroke, I've spent a great deal of time with him. We're becoming the father and son we never were."

Kirk Douglas divorced Michael's mother, British actress Diana Dill, when his son was five.

"My mother was remarried to a great man for 36 years. I grew up with them in Connecticut. I only visited my father during my holidays so we never had the proper time to bond."

Douglas says he understands how difficult it is for his son Cameron who wants to be a disc jockey.

"When I was growing up, I was always just Kirk Douglas's son. I had to fight for my own identity. Even though I had some success in the early 1970s with (the TV series) Streets of San Francisco, I didn't come into my own until 1975 when I produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

"Cameron is third generation. It's even harder for him to carve out a niche for himself."

Michael is the most successful of Kirk Douglas's four sons. He says he has often wondered why success came to him rather than his brothers.

"I am the alpha son and the first child in any family tends to be the dominant one. I think it also helped that I was a '60s hippy. Growing up I wasn't obsessed with money and success.

"It was a wonderful, magical time to grow up. I didn't feel pressured to succeed and therefore I was never intimidated by failure."

In The Game, Sean Penn plays Douglas's younger brother as a kind of ne'er-do-well.

The comparisons with Michael's real-life youngest brother Eric didn't escape the actor.

"You try to separate yourself from the pain and problems of your siblings but it's impossible. I think that's why my character in The Game agrees to play the game. It's a present from his brother who insists participating in a version of the game changed his life for the better.

"We always want our family members to succeed and to be happy."

Douglas's divorce and his son's recent problems have not put him off marriage or fatherhood.

"I'd get married again in a nanosecond if the right woman asked me and I'd love to have more children. I've learned so much that I'm certain I'd be a better husband and father."

Douglas recalls that when he turned 50 in 1994, he began to think about his mortality.

"I wondered how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. If my father's genes mean anything, I have a good 40 years left. I marvel at my father's spiritual growth these past 10 years since his plane crash and his stroke.

"His life did not end when his (acting) career ended and that is a great inspiration for me. "This has taught me that there are innumerable ways of having a life rather than retiring.

"I've decided I'm going to do less producing and more acting. I'd also like to try my hand at directing.

"I enjoy acting more and more. They pay you so well and they pamper you so much. It really is the best of all possible worlds."



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