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Michael Douglas opens up with Brian Linehan

Broadcast Date: Oct. 12, 1978

"You've done your homework," laughs movie star Michael Douglas. Interviewer Brian Linehan has just asked the actor about something he said years ago, regarding how he used to go into the bathroom and secretly pretend he was on the Johnny Carson show. In this 1978 CBC-TV interview, Linehan asks Douglas a number of other probing questions, ranging from why he chose to take his current role - the lead in a film called Running - to his thoughts on the public image of actor Burt Reynolds.

Michael Douglas opens up with Brian Linehan

• Michael Douglas was born on Sept. 25, 1944, in New Jersey.

• Douglas has won two Academy Awards, one for acting and one for producing. He won the Oscar for Best Picture as producer of 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for his Gordon Gekko character in the 1987 film Wall Street.

• His father, well-known actor Kirk Douglas, initially tried to discourage Michael from going into the film industry. "I discouraged all of my sons from ever going into any phase of the entertainment business ... My theory is that if you can discourage someone from going into this business, they shouldn't be in it anyway. It's too painful, too full of rejection. And the rejection is personal: it's 'I don't like you.' So I discouraged all my kids," explained Kirk Douglas in a 1987 New York Times article.

• Michael Douglas was expected to be at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival to promote his film Solitary Man. In this film, Douglas plays "a car magnate with a runaway libido," according to Variety magazine.

Michael Douglas opens up with Brian Linehan

Medium: Television

Program: Evening Out

Broadcast Date: Oct. 12, 1978

Guest(s): Michael Douglas

Interviewer: Brian Linehan

Duration: 5:28

Last updated:
May 2, 2011