Off The Record
Michael Douglas Confesses About His Health Battles And Aging
My two favorite films starring the famous Michael Douglas as an actor are Wall Street and The Game.
But, the elderly 78-year-old has recently undergone a noticeable transformation, which has garnered attention.
When I was a kid, Michael Douglas was one of the most gorgeous and charming performers, and I feel like that was a generally accepted fact.
When he first broke through in Hollywood, he represented all that was great about the modern American guy. The seasoned actor has proven his versatility over the course of his five decades in the business.
The Oscar-winner is recognized by many for his portrayals of unscrupulous Wall Street mogul Gordon Gekko and downtrodden millionaire Nicholas Van Orton in the films respectively (The Game).
“For some people, there’s security and safety in having an image and nurturing it and cultivating it,” Douglas told Today. “But…I’ve never had to worry about the dark, slick character aspect of some of my parts.”
“The best compliment I get is, ‘when I see your name, I don’t know what the movie’s going to be about, but I know it’s going to be good.’”
Michael Douglas will age 79 in 2023, and he will have had a wonderful film career, with many classic films to his credit.
Michael’s early exposure to the acting world gave him a leg up. His father, Kirk Douglas, used to spend the summers with him when he wasn’t busy making movies.
He spent a lot of time on film sets thanks to his father, and by the time he was a teenager, he had already decided he wanted to pursue acting professionally.
Michael Douglas made his acting debut as an unnamed driver in his father’s film Cast a Huge Shadow.
Once producer Quinn Martin saw Michael Douglas in a small role on the TV show The F.B.I., he cast Douglas in the upcoming police drama The Streets of San Francisco. The show debuted in 1972 and became Douglas’s breakout part.
Michael produced the groundbreaking film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975, solidifying his place as one of the industry’s all-time greats.
Douglas alone took home an Oscar for Best Actor, and the picture was nominated for seven other prizes.
After playing Gordon Gecko in the 1987 and 1993 versions of Wall Street and the 1996 remake, Michael went on to become a Hollywood A-lister (1997).
The Hollywood actor was stumped when asked to name his all-time favorite film.
”To use a baseball term: I have a pretty good batting average. I can’t say they are all grand-slam home runs, but I have a lot of hits, singles, maybe doubles, a couple of triples,” he told The Guardian in 2023.
Michael Douglas health update
Many people have commented recently on how Michael Douglas’s appearance has altered. It’s not surprising that our bodies evolve as we get older. The process of aging is inevitable and shared by all humans.
The Spanish publication Marca notes, however, that the speed with which his appearance has changed is astonishing. After Michael Douglas’s trip to France in 2022, Marca wrote about it.
The actor was in Paris for a few days and was seen out and about in a gorgeous area, walking about on the cobblestone streets. He appeared skinny, and reporters said his face looked ”much more deteriorated.”
Regardless matter how you feel about Michael Douglas’s shocking physical metamorphosis, the reality remains that he has had a rough few years.
Some may point to the seasoned actor’s diagnosis with tongue cancer in 2010 as the catalyst.
Douglas had been battling for quite some time and was experiencing mouth pain, but multiple doctors failed to diagnose or treat the underlying cause.
Douglas sought advice from a Canadian doctor a friend recommended, but the doctor gave him news he didn’t want to hear.
”I will always remember the look on his face,” Douglas has shared.
”He said: ‘We need a biopsy.’ There was a walnut-size tumour at the base of my tongue that no other doctor had seen.”
The actor quickly found that the level of his undiagnosed cancer required immediate, severe treatment.
Michael had hit rock bottom after eight weeks of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. He lost 45 pounds while on a liquid diet and looked very different by the time his treatment was over.
Michael and his family may now breathe a sigh of relief; his treatment was successful, and he was pronounced cancer-free in 2011. Michael blames his tongue cancer on anxiety, alcohol abuse, and tobacco use.
But, in a 2013 interview, Michael Douglas offered a fairly unexpected other rationale. Surprisingly, Douglas blamed his disease on his oral sex activities.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) was the most frequently mentioned STD he discussed, and he claimed it was the cause of his cancer.
”I did worry if the stress caused by my son’s incarceration didn’t help trigger it. But yeah, it’s a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer. And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it,” Michael Douglas said.
After the viral interview, a representative for Michaels said the actor was talking about HPV in general and not about his own diagnosis.
Douglas seems to have liked life and kept in shape after his ordeal with cancer treatment, but the COVID-19 pandemic had multiple detrimental effects on his health.
“I was quite surprised to realize how much energy I had lost throughout the pandemic,” he said.
Michael “did far more couch potato-ing” and experienced difficulties with short-term memory and recalling things throughout the pandemic.
”My long-term memory is fine, but short-term… not so much. I’m looking into it,” explained Douglas in an interview with ARRP Magazine in 2021.
His memory loss, which was formerly endearing, is “not fine” now that people know that Douglas smokes a lot of cannabis, which many assumed was the cause of his lapses in concentration.
Yet the actor insists that his passion for the dried hemp plant’s leaves and flowers is not to blame.
”I used to blame it on pot. But I’ve got some friends who’ve been smoking as long as I have and have fabulous memories, so I don’t think that’s the issue. I’m researching it,” he said.
We hope Michael gets better and lives through old age with vigour!
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