Oscar-winner Michael Douglas will have a memoir out this fall.
The Hollywood icon has a lot to cover as he grew up the son of Spartacus actor Kirk Douglas, came to fame on The Streets Of San Francisco, went to rehab for alcoholism, was in hit movies like Basic Instinct, and married stunner Catherine Zeta-Jones, 56.
It will be 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,’ the 81-year-old said in a statement released Wednesday through Grand Central Publishing.
The release date is set at October 6, 2026.
‘Not the highlight reel, not the version shaped by headlines or box office numbers, but the real one,’ he added.
Oscar-winner Michael Douglas will have a memoir out this fall. The Hollywood icon has a lot to cover as he grew up the son of Spartacus actor Kirk Douglas, came to fame on The Streets Of San Francisco, went to rehab for alcoholism, was in hit movies like Basic Instinct
And he married stunner Catherine Zeta-Jones, 56, in 2000
‘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 Jr – is currently untitled. Financial terms were not disclosed; Douglas was represented by Shane Salerno of the Story Factory.
The 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 Romancing The Stone, 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.
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.
With Jane Fonda on the set of The China Syndrome in 1979
In Jewel Of The Nile with his Romancing The Stone costar Kathleen Turner
Here he is seen with Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct in 1992
From left, Kirk Douglas, Zeta-Jones and Cameron Douglas in 2006
Kirk with his sons at Orly Airport in Paris in 1953 after their arrival from the US
‘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.
Douglas has won five Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy and an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award.
He is also a longtime philanthropist and activist who in 1998 was appointed a Messenger of Peace by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
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