Michael Douglas’ paternal guilt

Michael Douglas now knows how his father felt, says Evgenia Peretz in Vanity Fair. Douglas’ father, legendary actor Kirk Douglas, was hardly around during Michael’s childhood because he was off making movies, and had little patience for his kids. “He was a very intense, talented survivalist,” says Douglas. Ultimately, Kirk ended up choosing acting over family, and divorced Michael’s mother, Bermudan actress Diana Dill, in 1951. While launching his own acting career, Michael fell into the same patterns—spending little time with his son, Cameron, while he made movies, chased women, and drank heavily. “My priorities were similar to my father’s,” Douglas says. Douglas’ marriage to Cameron’s mother crumbled and the boy grew up barely knowing his father; he dropped out of school and fell into drug use. Now Cameron, 31, is facing up to 10 years in prison for trafficking large amounts of crystal meth and cocaine. “Anybody who has a relative or child in substance abuse has some idea of what this feels like,” says Michael. “I don’t wish it on anybody.” He’s hoping to repair his relationship with Cameron the way he and Kirk did late in his father’s life, but he isn’t sure he’ll get the chance. “We always tend to make more of an effort with strangers than we do the person closest to us,” Douglas says. “This is one of the worst-case scenarios.”

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