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Birth name Michael Kirk Douglas Date of birth (location) 25 September 1944, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA Height 5' 9"

A double threat in modern Hollywood filmmaking, Douglas has been a major force as both producer and actor. He began as an assistant director on father Kirk Douglas's 1960s films. The darkly handsome actor appeared in several typical features portraying idealistic youths confronting the issues of the day (Hail, Hero! (1969); Adam at 6 A.M. (1970); Summertree (1971)), then co-starred with Karl Malden in the TV cop drama The Streets of San Francisco (ABC, 1972-77). Douglas hit a home run with his feature executive producing debut: Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) netted major box office returns and five Oscars, including a Best Picture statuette shared by Douglas and Saul Zaentz.

Douglas joined forces with Jane Fonda's IPC Films to co-produce The China Syndrome (1979), which benefited greatly from the fortuitous timing of the near meltdown crisis at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Douglas starred with Fonda and Jack Lemmon, the latter pair earning Oscar nominations.

Until Romancing the Stone (1984), Douglas was more highly regarded as a producer than an actor. His portrayal of Jack Colton, the amiably smug adventurer, was a superb delineation of a black sheep Indiana Jones. Essentially a feminist take on Raiders and its ilk, the film profitably teamed him with Kathleen Turner and Danny De Vito for a rollicking, fast-paced comedy adventure. This trio also collaborated on the inevitable sequel, Jewel of the Nile (1985) and, most impressively, DeVito's black comedy of divorce, War of the Roses (1989).

One characteristic that distinguishes Douglas from most other stars of his generation is the overt sleaziness of his screen persona. He exudes an arrogance that serve as a critique of his characters, though at the same time his Everyman quality has served as a centerpiece for vehicles in which he is victimized by the lead female characters. These qualities effectively underlined the hypocrisy and the helplessness of his protagonist in Fatal Attraction (1987), revealed the basic pettiness and mean-spiritedness of the husband in The War of the Roses, and proved spellbinding in his Oscar-winning portrayal of corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987).

In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Joel Schumacher's Flatliners (1990) and Richard Donner's Radio Flyer (1992), and dabbled in an attempt to revive the failed Victorine Studios in Nice, France.

Douglas's next outing was as the producer of Made in America (1993), a successful comic pairing (off-screen and on) of Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson. He was threatened by a woman once again, as the star of Disclosure (1994) opposite Demi Moore. Based on Michael Crichton's bestselling novel, the film tells the story of a male executive sexually harassed by his female boss.

Douglas left sleaze behind in the charming 1995 comedy The American President, directed by Rob Reiner and co-starring Annette Bening and Michael J. Fox. Douglas was surprisingly light and breezy as widowed President Shepherd, trying to balance running the Free World and romancing an environmental lobbyist.

In 1994 he signed a development deal at Paramount; among his many development projects was producing and starring in the historical adventure The Ghost and the Darkness (1996).

Now Michael Douglas is married to an actress Catherine Zeta-Jones whom he met at the Deauville Film Festival in France in August 1998, began dating in March 1999 and got engaged on New Year's Eve 1999. He is exactly 25 years older than his wife. The two of them share a birthday, September 25th.

He has two sons: Cameron Morrell (b. 13 December 1978), with Diandra Luker, and Dylan Michael (b. 8 August 2000), with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

In 1997 he was Ranked #74 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. In 1998 he was named Named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His mission: to focus worldwide attention on nuclear disarmament and human rights.

The sources are StarLink and Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com)