Michael Douglas reveals all in wild new memoir: Sexiling Danny DeVito, heavy drug use and more

The title of Michael Douglas’ new memoir is “One Helluva Ride,” and the 82-year-old Oscar winner definitely delivers that for readers. In the late ’90s, when Douglas became serious with Catherine Zeta-Jones, she warned him that she wasn’t interested in dating him unless they were monogamous. “I told her, ‘Wait here, I have to make five quick calls,'” he writes, shocking the “Chicago” star, 57, who exclaimed, “Five? You have to make five calls?!” Michael Douglas met Catherine Zeta-Jones at the Deauville Film Festival in 1998. They’re pictured above. Sygma via Getty Images Zeta-Jones told Douglas she would only date him if they were monogamous. Getty Images “I made sure they all lived in different cities,” he writes of the various women he was involved with at the time, “which felt like a respectful way to be nonmonogamous. None of them asked for a commitment or even asked what else I was up to. I am sure they were seeing other people, too.” Years earlier, Douglas, then an unknown actor, had shared an Upper West Side apartment with another struggling actor named Danny DeVito. The two devised an old-fashioned warning if one or the other was entertaining anyone — a sock on the doorknob. Clearly, Douglas was busy entertaining during this time span, as “there were some periods where Danny found himself living more outside the apartment than in.” Douglas writes in his just-released memoir that he excused himself to call five women after she laid down that boundary. WireImage Douglas also writes movingly of his relationship with his father, the late movie star, Kirk Douglas. Getty Images He also had an affair when he was about 18 with a friend of his mother’s. “She was my Mrs. Robinson — she taught me a lot about women and what women liked, and it was very helpful information for a young man,” he writes. “Honestly, ‘The Graduate’ felt like a documentary when I watched it.” Douglas also writes poignantly about his childhood and his father, the late movie star Kirk Douglas, his volcanic temper and his unhappy marriage to Michael’s mother, Diana Dill. “Dad was from the hitting generation, and when he raged, I learned early on to stay away and be quiet. I became shy and cautious. I rarely smiled or laughed.” “Dad was from the hitting generation, and when he raged, I learned early on to stay away and be quiet,” he writes. Kirk is seen here in 1956 with sons Michael (right) and Joel (center). Getty Images Douglas says he became cautious as a child and rarely smiled. He is seen here in 1953 with his dad and brother Joel. Bettmann Archive However, Michael notes that his relationship with his father, who passed away at age 103 in 2020, “was transformed in the last third of his life. He became my dad in every way, and I became his son…We became stronger than I ever could have dreamed.” The star attended college at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he spent part of the time living on a commune and ingesting LSD. A lot of LSD. “I would say that over a three-year period, I took LSD more than a hundred times,” he writes, “but never more than once a week.” Douglas says his relationship with his father (seen above) “was transformed in the last third of his life. He became my dad in every way, and I became his son.” AFP via Getty Images “We became stronger than I ever could have dreamed,” he writes. WireImage “Because I was a man of restraint,” he cheekily notes. Surprisingly, Kirk did not pay for college; instead, he gave his son a $10,000 trust fund and said, “From here on in, you’re on your own.” Michael came up with a risky strategy to pay tuition — he became a drug smuggler — using “two beautiful, soft leather Italian suitcases” that his father had given him as a Christmas present. He also writes of his long friendship with Danny DeVito. The two appear here in 2016. WireImage The pair were roommates when they were both struggling actors. Getty Images The “Wall Street” star figured out that each suitcase held twenty-two kilos of marijuana and “I would fill those suitcases with forty-four kilos of grass, which I could buy for seventy-five dollars a kilo in California and sell for five hundred in New York…I could feel guilty about my part in distributing drugs, but it was the late sixties to early seventies. No one needed my help finding their way to drugs.” He only did the run twice and graduated with no student loans or debt. Douglas writes honestly about his increasing drug use, which was made easy on sets. “There was always one crew member who was the hookup,” he writes. “He could get you anything you wanted…You just went to the prop master or the stunt coordinator, whoever it was for the movie you were filming, and they’d hook you up.” Rob Reiner (seen above with Douglas in 2014) was also a close friend for many years. WireImage Another close pal is Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. The friends are seen above in 2014. WireImage He also once did coke with OJ Simpson and Rolling Stone magazine honcho Jann Wenner in the ’70s. Simpson “whipped out a rolled dollar bill” and offered them coke at Wenner’s apartment. Eventually Michael and Wenner’s coke habit worsened. “It was not unusual for us to do a bump while getting ready to go out, another just before dinner, another in the middle of dinner, and yet one more after dinner.” The “Traffic” star entered rehab in 1992, but not before he had a drunken altercation with Julia Roberts at a Golden Globes party in 1990. Douglas produced the movie “Flatliners,” which starred Roberts and her then-fiancé Kiefer Sutherland. Douglas says that he and Wenner (pictured in 1986) did a lot of coke together. Getty Images He entered rehab in 1992 for drug and alcohol abuse. Getty Images “We were at the bar, and Julia had her arm around my son [Cameron, then 13], kind of nuzzling him,” he claims. “To me, in that moment, he looked stunned…but I was pretty drunk.” The actor remembers telling Roberts: “Take your hands off my son and take that Golden Globe and stick it where the sun don’t shine.” The next morning, Douglas received a call from his producing partner, who had heard about the incident. “I’d crossed a line with the most in-demand young actress in Hollywood,” he recalls. In response, he sent Roberts a bunch of roses along with a note and apologized in person to her and Sutherland. The “Falling Down” star’s first marriage was to Diandra Luker, as seen above in 1977. Getty Images The marriage was unhappy for many years. WireImage “Luckily, they forgave me enough to get through that and finish the picture,” he writes. “I remained friends with Kiefer. Julia, not so much.” Cameron would go on to battle his own drug addiction, which landed him in jail for several years. Now 47, he was released from prison after serving seven years for drug charges in 2016. While he was writing the book, his longtime friend Rob Reiner, who directed him in “The American President,” was killed alongside his wife, Michele Reiner, allegedly by their troubled son, Nick. Douglas says that he and the “Stand by Me” director spent many hours talking. The ex-couple have a son named Cameron. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images He has two children with Zeta-Jones, Dylan and Carys. FilmMagic “We both had sons with serious drug issues and we both at times, had been at the end of our rope,” he writes. “It was a heartbreaking confessional for us, but I know we gave each other some measure of comfort during the hard times.” Douglas’ first marriage to Diandra Luker was long but dreadfully unhappy; both of them had been seeing other people. For one, he had an affair with Kathleen Turner on the set of “Romancing the Stone.” We found each other first as friends, then as co-stars and finally as lovers,” he writes. “Following an exhausting day of shooting in the jungle … I would sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep.” It only ended when Luker visited the Mexico set with Cameron and confronted Turner. His first role was in the TV series “The Streets of San Francisco.” A shot from the show in 1975 is seen here. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Douglas had a huge hit with 1987’s “Fatal Attraction” opposite Glenn Close. ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection “Diandra grew suspicious,” he writes. “A woman’s intuition, I suppose. At some point, she was alone with Kathleen and made it clear to her that we were still married. Her view of the terms of our separation was different from mine.” The conversation “gave Kathleen pause,” as “she didn’t want to interfere.” Incidentally, Turner was not the first choice to play the mousy romance novelist in the hit 1984 flick. He and the other producers had seriously wooed Debra Winger for the part but, “no matter how hard we tried, she would not give us an answer, one way or another. We were in limbo.” Want more celebrity and pop culture news? Start your day with Page Six Daily. Thanks for signing up! Playing the nefarious Gordon Gekko in 1987’s “Wall Street” earned him an Oscar. 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merch Another big hit was 1984’s “Romancing the Stone” with Kathleen Turner. 20th Century Fox/Kobal / Shutterstock That changed after Douglas took the “Terms of Endearment” star out for dinner along with Jack Nicholson and DeVito. “We all left the restaurant and were walking down the street when, the way somebody might punch you in the arm as you part company, Debra leaned over and bit me. “I mean, she really bit me. Jesus, I had a whole set of teeth marks dug into my arm. We still had no answer from her, but that bit sealed the deal for me. No, thank you!” The “Body Heat” star wasn’t the only actress Douglas romanced on set. He had an on-set fling with Turner. 20th Century Fox/Kobal / Shutterstock He also had an affair with Jeanne Tripplehorn while making 1992’s “Basic Instinct.” ©TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection He also had a torrid affair with Jeanne Tripplehorn while filming “Basic Instinct.” In the 1992 erotic thriller, Douglas plays a homicide detective who, while investigating a murder, begins a sizzling relationship with the prime suspect: a wealthy heiress played by Sharon Stone. The steamy sex scenes in the movie were a sensation at the time, leading to speculation that Douglas and Stone were having an affair in real life. “The truth is I fell very hard for Jeanne despite our nearly twenty-year age difference,” he writes. “In fact, I was ready to officially leave my wife for Jeanne. I was crazy about her.” Tripplehorn was in her late 20s and Michael in his late 40s during production. “The truth is I fell very hard for Jeanne despite our nearly 20-year age difference,” he writes. Everett Collection / Everett Col He found lasting love with Zeta-Jones. Getty Images But he had the wherewithal to understand that the “worst thing” he could have done was ditch a nearly twenty-year marriage and jump right into another serious relationship. “My relationship with Jeanne lasted through production,” he writes, “then we went our separate ways. But I will always think of her as an amazing actress and a truly terrific woman that I was very fortunate to spend time with.” Douglas found true and lasting love with Zeta-Jones, with whom he shares son, Dylan, 26, and daughter, Carys, 23. The couple has been through some tough times, including cancer and a separation. They briefly separated but reconciled. Getty Images “I love Catherine in a way that I have never loved any other woman,” he writes. Getty Images In 2010, he was diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer and spent seven weeks undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, which involved lying perfectly still while wearing a thermoplastic mesh mask that hardened. “I hated every part of it. I felt like I was suffocating, completely powerless….At first the pain was bad but manageable, but by the third week I was in real trouble.” Four weeks in, he had become “sallow and gaunt” and lost 40 pounds. He was given a choice of a feeding tube but decided against it and for a while Ensure became his “best friend.” In 2010, he was diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer. Dia Dipasupil “Cancer made me a free man,” he proclaims. “It’s difficult to talk about, but it felt like a rebirth.” AP Photo/Taylor Jewell “Swallowing was difficult,” he writes, “sometimes impossible, and I was always nauseated.” Despite the grueling regimen, Douglas is grateful he had cancer. “Cancer made me a free man,” he proclaims. “It’s difficult to talk about, but it felt like a rebirth. My priorities changed. Cancer showed me what family is. It made me feel a love that I never knew really existed. I saw everything a little bit clearer, and a little brighter, and became more conscious of how I spent my time.” “Cancer showed me what family is,” he notes. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images “One Helluva Ride” is out now. Grand Central Publishing via AP In 2013, he and Zeta-Jones separated, although he doesn’t explain what caused it, only that the “entire ordeal was incredibly difficult.” The pair reconciled the following year, which is what he had hoped for the minute they separated. “I love Catherine in a way that I have never loved any other woman,” he writes movingly. “She’s my wife, my best friend, and my life partner. I could never lose her…Thank God we found our way back to each other. Our marriage deserved a second chance.”