Oscar-winner Michael Douglas will have a memoir out this fall, a “raw, sweeping” account he says will illuminate his storied personal and professional lives.
“After being asked for many years, I’ve finally decided it’s time to tell my story on my own terms,” Douglas said in a statement released Wednesday through Grand Central Publishing, which has set an Oct. 6 release date.
“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’ book, written in collaboration with Michael Fleming, is currently untitled. Financial terms were not disclosed; Douglas was represented by Shane Salerno of the Story Factory.
The 81-year-old actor has been on screen, and in the news, for decades. The son of Hollywood giant Kirk Douglas, he broke through in the 1970s in the hit TV series “The Streets of San Francisco” and went on to star in such cultural touchstones as “Fatal Attraction,” “Wall Street” and “Basic Instinct.” He also produced the Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a project that Douglas’ father had longed to take on himself.
Michael Douglas has survived cancer and substance abuse and otherwise fought to set himself apart from the elder Douglas. His marriage in November 2000 to fellow actor Catherine Zeta-Jones, more than 20 years his junior, was initially met with doubts that their union would last.
“For the first time, Douglas is ready to tell the unfiltered story of his life in a raw, career-sweeping memoir that traces his journey from his father, Kirk Douglas’ shadow to his own stardom,” Grand Central’s announcement reads in part.
Along with baring his demons and disappointments, Douglas “shares his triumphs: his victorious fight against stage-four cancer and his enduring 25-year marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones, which has proved skeptics wrong and become one of Hollywood’s most enduring love stories,” Grand Central announced.
Beyond his Academy Awards for acting in “Wall Street” and producing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Douglas has won five Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy and an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. Douglas is also a longtime philanthropist and activist who in 1998 was appointed a Messenger of Peace by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.