Some time at home with the Douglas acting dynasty

In “A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Lee Grant’s candid and affecting dual portrait of Kirk and Michael Douglas, the elder Douglas admits that he never got the approval that he longed for from his own father, an immigrant Russian who became a ragpicker. “Yeah” was all Kirk Douglas could ever get out of his father as to whether he’d seen -- and liked -- “Champion,” the 1949 boxing classic that cemented Kirk’s stardom. Michael got the approval he sought from Kirk, but it’s clear it wasn’t easy and took time.

In what is two stories in one, the HBO documentary, debuting tonight at 8, reveals how Kirk Douglas became a screen icon but then had to learn how to become a family man and a parent. “Ultimately, you became a great father,” Michael assures Kirk, adding that early on his father’s career came first and his family second. Yet Kirk tells Michael, “I had it much easier than you. I came from abject poverty, so there was no place to go but up.”

Michael Douglas belongs to that small minority, second-generation Hollywood stars, and his accomplishment is all the more impressive considering the enduring overwhelming presence of his father. To this day, all Kirk Douglas has to do is to stand in front of a camera to command the screen, or enter a room to dominate it. Old age, a near-fatal 1991 helicopter crash and a stroke that initially robbed him of his speech have failed to dampen his great gusto for life or his hearty sense of humor. It’s hard to imagine anyone else who has so thoroughly relished being a movie star, and Kirk Douglas has lived long enough and overcome enough adversity to attain a serene gratitude for good fortune, family and friends.

Grant is an ideal choice for this project. Like the Douglases, she is an Oscar winner. She appeared with Kirk memorably in the 1951 film “Detective Story” and later added directing and documentary filmmaking to her impressive acting credits. Clearly, she has the trust of her subjects, and equally clearly, she is not someone these two world-class charmers could easily con.

Grant wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter that threatened the father-son relationship before it had a chance to flourish. That’s when Michael produced the Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and he and director Milos Forman gave the very role that Kirk had played on Broadway some dozen years before to Jack Nicholson, who won an Oscar for it. Even though Kirk has forgiven Michael, they skirmish a bit, with Michael finally pointing out that Nicholson is 20 years his father’s junior.

Father and son have always had a way with women, and Kirk Douglas’ first wife, actress Diana Douglas, the mother of Michael and Joel, divorced him over his infidelities, though they have remained friends. His second wife, Anne, to whom Kirk has been married 51 years, says, “I didn’t think men are very faithful anyway,” but laid down a rule: Her husband had to tell her when he strayed because she felt sure she would hear of it from someone else. The Douglases are forthcoming about much more than sex, with Michael admitting to a past drinking problem and that his son Cameron got caught up in drugs in his early teens. Joel, a producer, remarks that he has always had a weight problem, a challenge in Hollywood, “where the way we look can be more important than who we are.”

As the first of Anne and Kirk’s two sons, Peter, also a producer, thinks he had the most favored childhood among the brothers, but of his late younger actor brother Eric, to whose memory the film is dedicated, Kirk says, he “had lots of problems with alcohol and drugs, but he was so smart and so charming -- I learned a lot from him.”

Numerous colleagues’ insights round out the dual portrait. With people as successful as Kirk and Michael Douglas, it’s always easy to come up with naysayers, but Grant has taken the more rewarding route of trying to give viewers an idea of what makes these two men tick and what it has taken for them to achieve the loving relationship they now enjoy.

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‘A Father ... A Son’

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Where: HBO

When: 8 to 9:35 tonight

Ratings: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with an advisory for language, adult content)

Kirk Douglas...self

Michael Douglas...self

Director: Lee Grant