The Road Trip ‘Home’

Originally, Kirk Douglas planned to star with his Oscar-winning son Michael in the father-son drama “Take Me Home Again,” which premieres Sunday on NBC. But the timing wasn’t right.

“About three years ago, Michael sent me the script,” Douglas, a rugged 78, recalls in his Beverly Hills office. “We have been looking for about five years for something to do together. He said, ‘I think I got something.’ And he sent me the script.”

But Douglas thought the script by Ernest Thompson (“On Golden Pond”), about a dying man and his estranged son who travel cross-country so he can die in the bed he was born in, was too “down.”

So he told Michael, “We will find something better.” About nine months ago, Douglas was sent the script again. The second time around, Douglas really liked it. “I said, ‘Michael, you’re right. Let’s do it.’ ”

But Douglas fils was set to do two movies. So while Michael was making the high-profile Christmas release “Disclosure,” Douglas was off doing “Take Me Home Again,” not as a theatrical film, but for the small screen. Craig T. Nelson, star of the long-running ABC sitcom “Coach,” came on board as Douglas’ son.

Douglas, who has starred in countless film classics, including “Champion,” “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “Lust for Life,” “Spartacus” and “The Big Carnival” (also known as “Ace in the Hole”) doesn’t mind tht “Take Me Home Again” found a home on TV.

“I have done about five or six TV movies (“Amos,” “Inherit the Wind,” “The Secret” among them) which I have liked,” says Douglas, who describes himself as “a feisty guy,” but comes across as easygoing and friendly.

“When I think of the ratings that they had, I think more people have seen those movies than have seen a lot of my theatrical movies. I think TV very often allows you to do a movie, not on a very expensive budget, on a subject that is very often difficult to do as a theatrical. I am more interested in finding something I enjoy playing. And ‘Take Me Home Again’ was really fun to play.”

And Douglas loved working with TV actor Nelson. “I found it very easy working with Craig. He is a real professional. He was very easy to work with, which was nice because we had so many scenes together.”

Douglas was a childhood idol of Nelson’s. So needless to say, Nelson was thrilled to work with him. “I wasn’t nervous,” Nelson says. “I was just in awe. As a kid I had seen ‘Spartacus’ and it was just phenomenal to actually realize you are going to be working with this guy. I was terribly impressed. He was so professional, such a great guy.”

And Douglas, Nelson says, insisted on a lot of rehearsal time. “He made sure of that,” he says. “We had a lot of good times together. I was very fortunate to have that opportunity. It was a really wonderful shoot. It went by too quickly.”

In “Take Me Home Again,” Douglas plays Ed Reece, a former traveling salesman who is dying of cancer. “I am the old geezer who wants to go back where he was born,” he says with a flash of his famous blue eyes. Douglas says the film reminds him of Arthur Miller’s landmark play “Death of a Salesman.”

“From my point of view--that’s why I was so interested in it as a vehicle for Michael and me--it is really about a father who wants to get back with his older son,” he says. “It is usually that way. Very often, the oldest son is a rebel. It was that way with Michael. Michael was always a rebel. For the last eight years we have had a very close relationship. (Before that), we weren’t close. Michael would always do his own thing and now, it is nice.

“We had breakfast this morning. I left a message for him: ‘If you are free, come over to the house at 8 for breakfast.’ And he came over and looked at his watch and said, ‘Dad, it is 10 to 8. I said, ‘Michael, you and I have that same quality, we have a compunction to be on time,’ which my other sons don’t share.”

Douglas believes he and the eldest of his four sons have bonded because Michael has carved out his own identity. “I think that happens with all kids, especially if their father is a strong father, a successful father. The sons have to find their own identity. Certainly, if Michael doesn’t have his identity now he is never going to find it.”

He also found a real kinship with Ed. “As I said before, the closest thing this reminds me of is ‘Death of a Salesman.’ Time goes on and you have been on the road so much. I can relate to that. When I was young, I was making three movies a year. You are not spending enough time with your kid. Suddenly you say, ‘Wait a minute.’ And you want to catch up on certain things. In a sense, this movie is catching up with your relationship with your son.”

Though Douglas is still eager to work with Michael, writing is the elder Douglas’ first priority these days. This past summer, he published his third novel, the critically acclaimed “Last Tango in Brooklyn.”

Douglas peruses the shelves of his office looking for a copy of the novel to give his visitor. He finally finds one and opens up the title page to autograph it. “Michael’s company has been talking about making it into a movie,” Douglas says, sliding the book across the desk. “I think you will enjoy it.”

Currently, Douglas is writing a sequel to his best-selling autobiography, “The Ragman’s Son.”

“My first book was looking back,” he says. “My next one is going to be a continuation of my life story from a very different point of view.”

The new book will start with Douglas’ 1991 accident involving a helicopter in which he was a passenger. The helicopter collided with a light plane and Douglas was injured; the plane’s two occupants were killed.

“It will start with the helicopter crash, posing the question: ‘Why am I alive?’ These two people were killed and I felt so guilty. How does that happen? In a way, this will be a lot more introspective.”

Just the other day, Douglas says, he wrote a chapter on his good friend and frequent co-star, Burt Lancaster, who died in October of a heart attack. He speaks about Lancaster with great warmth, affection and nostalgia.

“I wrote a chapter just on our relationship and how I felt about Burt and a lot of stuff I don’t think people had known,” he says. “We did, like, seven movies together. We did song and dance routines. We did a play in San Francisco for six weeks. We fought and argued. He was a great guy. A lot of people didn’t realize it, but Burt was a big opera buff. He loved opera. I always said, ‘I am going to expose you, Burt. You are a big tough guy and I am going to expose you as the intellectual you really are.’ ”

Douglas looks wistfully around at the film posters that adorn the walls: “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “Seven Days in May,” in which he co-starred with Lancaster, “Spartacus” and “The Last Sunset.”

“I don’t have anything about movies in my house,” Douglas says. “Here I have all the posters. But when I was writing this article about Burt Lancaster, I looked around and began to see people (who I worked with) who are dead: Gloria Grahame, Gilbert Roland, Dick Powell, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Laurence Olivier, Rock Hudson, Charles Laughton. It was like the roll-call of the dead. You think, where did all the years go? How long have I been around?

He pauses. “I enjoy writing. You are just digging inside of yourself and talking about things.”

Douglas also is a recipient this year of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors, along with director Harold Prince, folk singer Pete Seeger, soul diva Aretha Franklin and composer Morton Gould. CBS will telecast the Washington awards ceremony, which was taped Dec. 4, on Dec. 28.

“What I have said about (the honor) is you don’t have to say anything,” says Douglas, who received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award three years ago.

“You are just properly modest and you sit in the presidential box and watch the show,” he says with a smile. “You don’t have to worry about making out a suitable acceptance speech. It is a nice award. I keep kidding people, ‘Don’t you think I am much too young for this prestigious honor?’ ”

Receiving such honors has been a double-edged sword for Douglas. “I have gotten several lifetime achievement awards and you say, ‘Wait a minute? Are you telling me it is all over?’ Come on. I just did ‘Take Me Home Again.’ I am going to do a movie with Michael. I am writing another book. It’s nice, but you wonder if they have looked at my medical records and said, ‘We better give this guy an award fast.’ ”

“Take Me Home Again” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC; “The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts” airs Dec. 28 at 9 p.m. on CBS.