Again, Mr. Douglas

Like father, like son.

Michael Douglas will step into his father Kirk’s shoes on Thursday night when he receives the 37th annual American Film Institute Life Achievement Award; Kirk Douglas received the same award in 1991.

The echoes don’t end there. Like his father, Michael has made a name for himself both as an actor and filmmaker. Both either appeared in or produced -- and sometimes both -- some of the most memorable films of their times; from “Spartacus,” “Champion” and “Lust for Life” for the dad to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Wall Street” for the son.

Though he missed his father’s AFI tribute -- “I don’t know where I was at the time,” Douglas admitted -- both his parents are coming to his, which will be held on a soundstage at Sony Studios. “I get thrilled thinking they are going to be there.”

The bond between 64-year-old Michael and his 92-year-old father has never been stronger. Michael Douglas believes that since his father’s near-fatal helicopter crash and debilitating stroke last decade, Kirk has become more nurturing.

“He’s doing his books and his one-man show with a spirituality that didn’t exist before,” Michael says. (His dad’s show premiered, appropriately enough, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.) He added that his father has more time to be a parent now. “He was doing five pictures a year, working all the time,” he recalls of his childhood.

The son was no slouch either. He made a handful of movies before he became a TV star in the 1970s with the hit detective series “The Streets of San Francisco,” with Karl Malden. While working on “Streets,” Douglas produced 1975’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which won the best picture Oscar.

He won a best actor Oscar for 1987’s “Wall Street” and bared more than his soul in such controversial thrillers as 1987’s “Fatal Attraction’ and 1992’s “Basic Instinct.” He costarred in everything from political dramas (“The China Syndrome” with Jane Fonda) to action comedy (“Romancing the Stone” with Kathleen Turner).

Douglas was pleased but philosophical about winning the AFI award.

“It’s great once you get past the first moment of calling your doctor for a physical because maybe they know something you don’t,” he joked, but then added: “It gives you a moment to reflect.”

These days Douglas is still boyishly handsome, sporting the same scruffy hair from his “Streets of San Francisco” days, if a bit grayer.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles -- he and his second wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and their two young children, Dylan and Carys, live in Bermuda -- Douglas was good-humored and charming. For an Oscar winner and scion of Hollywood royalty, he comes across as a regular guy, candid about his life and good fortune.

Douglas spent most of his formative years in Connecticut with his mother, actress Diana Dill, and his stepfather.

“I was very fortunate that my mother remarried a wonderful guy and Kirk is the first guy to acknowledge that,” he says. “I would come and visit him and all that but I missed some of that craziness.”

Douglas says his priorities have changed since marrying Zeta-Jones and the births of his two young children; he also has a 30-year-old son, actor Cameron Douglas, from his first marriage.

Though he continues to work -- he had a supporting role in this spring’s comedy “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”; starring roles in two upcoming dramas, “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” and “Solitary Man”; and is scheduled to reunite with director Oliver Stone on the much-anticipated sequel to “Wall Street” -- Douglas is pacing his projects as an actor and producer. His family comes first now.

“I never anticipated I would have a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old,” he said with a smile. “The AFI award makes me think how old I will be when my daughter is 18. . . . Catherine is great. The nice thing is you are old enough to know you have a great marriage.”

Bob Gazzale, AFI president and chief executive, said Douglas’ work speaks directly to his times.

“I found it fascinating when he was giving a master seminar up here on campus for the AFI fellows, he pointed out that he has only done one period piece, ‘The Ghost and the Darkness,’ ” Gazzale said. “He’s attracted to stories of the times. In doing that, I think what makes his career rise above the rest is that he always managed to capture the zeitgeist -- ‘Wall Street,’ ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘China Syndrome.’ ”

Despite his background -- or perhaps because of it -- Douglas has remained steadfastly non-Hollywood. He resided in Santa Barbara for years before moving to Bermuda, which is where his mother was born.

“I have huge family in Bermuda,” he said. “It’s a great place to raise kids.” And keep them out of the eyes of the paparazzi. “It doesn’t exist out there,” he said.

“It is totally protected. I don’t know how a lot of people do it -- the constant confrontation, camera lenses and stuff.”

But the Douglas clan plans on dividing their time between Bermuda and New York.

“We have been [to New York] in the past and times have changed,” he said. “We are no longer the flavor of the month. The pressure is off.”

Though Douglas made his starring film debut 40 years ago in the now-forgotten drama “Hail, Hero!,” he really didn’t hit his stride as a feature actor until his turn as a dashing adventurer in “Romancing the Stone.”

“I think most sons and daughters of successful parents take a little longer to find out who they are,” he notes. “Basically, I looked young for a long time. And when you have such an icon, with your father, it takes you time to find your own identity, to feel comfortable in your own skin.”

When he did start to play darker, morally ambiguous characters in 1987, Douglas really hit his stride -- in his Oscar-winning turn as the slick business tycoon Gordon “Greed Is Good” Gekko in “Wall Street,” as the happily married man who strays with deadly consequences in “Fatal Attraction,” and as an average guy pushed over the edge by urban woes in “Falling Down.”

Douglas continued exploring the sexual mores of the time in Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct,” in which Douglas’ San Francisco cop has an affair with the murderous Sharon Stone (and who can forget that scene), and then in 1994’s “Disclosure,” in which he found himself the victim of sexual harassment.

“ ‘Fatal’ was great high concept, really well-executed,” said Douglas. In the case of “Basic Instinct,” Douglas was “looking for a slam dance. It was a conservative time and I was looking for something out there.”

Still, he said, “I think what I am most happy about is that as hard as so many actors have worked to create their image, I have been all over the place.”

--

susan.king@latimes.com

--

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

AFI Life Achievement Award: Michael Douglas

Network: TV Land

When: July 19

The list of speakers includes Kirk Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sharon Stone and Annette Bening.

--

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Douglas on his costars

Over the decades, Michael Douglas has worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest actors. Here’s what he has to say about some of his favorites.

KARL MALDEN

Douglas starred opposite him in “The Streets of San Francisco” from 1972 to 1976.

“He’s my mentor. When you have an event like this, it makes you really put things in perspective on how fortunate to do 108 hours of TV with this guy. You know why Marlon Brando loved to work with him? Because he was so giving as an actor.”

KATHLEEN TURNER

Douglas appeared with her in 1984’s “Romancing the Stone,” 1986’s “Jewel of the Nile” and 1999’s “War of the Roses.”

“We put her through murder in ‘Romancing the Stone.’ I couldn’t think of an actress who could go through physically what she went through plus having a leading man up to his butt in the production.”

DANNY DeVITO

Douglas worked with him on “Romancing,” “Jewel” and “Roses,” which DeVito also directed.

“I’ve known him forever. We were roommates in New York. I used to go to a place called the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre at the National Playwrights Conference in Connecticut. I was going there during my summers from college and this long-haired guy from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts was there. He doesn’t stop.”

GLENN CLOSE

Douglas appeared with her in 1987’s “Fatal Attraction.”

“She did such a great job in ‘Fatal’ and went through all the adversity of redoing the ending. She wasn’t happy about it but still went with it. I love her because she looks so fierce and she’s so funny.”

-- Susan King