On Thursday, November 29, 2018, the Coolidge honored actor and producer Michael Douglas for his achievements throughout his 50-year screen career. From Gordon Gekko to Grady Tripp, he has created some of the most indelible characters to grace the silver screen.
Douglas was present for a 1pm screening of Curtis Hanson's Academy Award-nominated Wonder Boys, followed by an 8pm onstage conversation (moderated by WGBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen) and presentation of the Coolidge Award.
About Michael Douglas
An actor and producer with fifty years of experience in theatre, film, and television, Michael Douglas has made an indelible mark on American film culture. After achieving success as an actor on the popular TV series The Streets of San Francisco (1972 - 76), he branched out into independent film production with the Academy Award-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In subsequent years, he achieved international stardom and critical acclaim for films such as The China Syndrome (1979) and Romancing the Stone (1984), both of which he also produced; Wall Street (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his iconic portrayal of Gordon Gekko; the smash hits Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992); Falling Down (1993); The American President (1995); The Game (1997); Traffic (2000); Wonder Boys (2000); the HBO film Beyond the Candelabra (2013), for which he won the SAG, Emmy, and Golden Globe Awards for his portrayal of the famed entertainer Liberace; and the Marvel hits Ant-Man (2015) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). In November 2018, he will appear in the new Netflix series The Kominsky Method, co-starring Alan Arkin.
In addition to his dynamic acting career, Michael Douglas is a generous philanthropist, advocating for nuclear disarmament on the board of Ploughshares Fund and as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His “Michael Douglas & Friends” Celebrity Golf Event has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources. He supports his alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, where he helped fund the Center for Film, Television and New Media and established the Michael Douglas Foundation Visiting Artists Program for the Department of Theater and Dance. In 1999, he established the Michael Douglas Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Center at UC San Francisco.