2-Time Oscar Winner Michael Douglas Talks New Autobiography & More with Rich

Michael Douglas has a story about Bob Dylan's dog eating his caviar. He has a story about getting bitten on the arm while trying to cast Romancing the Stone. He has a story about Oliver Stone knocking on his trailer door two weeks into Wall Street and asking if he was on drugs.

All of it is in One Hell of a Ride, the memoir Rich held up as the number one bestselling nonfiction book on the planet, and a good chunk of it came out in one sitting on The Rich Eisen Show.

**Why write it now**

Douglas gave Rich the short answer. About 16 years ago he had stage four cancer, and he noticed he wasn't hearing from many friends. "When you get stage four, they're kind of nervous," he said. "They don't know whether to say goodbye to you or what."

One person who did reach out was Shane Salerno, who had written a screenplay for him and started sending him notes and coaching him through it. Over the years Salerno kept pushing. Then, at the end of 2022, Douglas simply stopped. "I just woke up one day and said I'm tired. 50 years."

His first idea was a producer's book, modeled on Memo, the collection of David O. Selznick's production memos from Gone with the Wind, walking through 10 or 12 of his movies from start to finish. Then he realized readers would want his personal life too, and that a career full of characters wrestling with moral gray areas demanded the same honesty from him. "I decided I've got to go all in," he said. Writing it scared him. In a movie, you're playing a character. In a book, "you're just laying out your whole story in your life."

Rich floated the theory that Douglas refused to write until the Knicks won a title. Not quite. "The Knicks win was my motivation to finish," Douglas said, adding that it brought him back to Earl "the Pearl" Monroe and Walt Frazier and the Knicks of the old days. As for football, he grew up a Giants fan in the Y.A. Tittle and Frank Gifford era until Broadway Joe came along with the fur coat and the Super Bowl III guarantee. He's been a Jets fan ever since.

**Celebrity True or False, memoir edition**

Since Douglas wrote the source material himself, Rich reworked the show's game into "Is This Really True," opening with a Jack Nicholson "You can't handle the truth" drop.

First up: did Douglas try to convince Debra Winger to play Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone over dinner with Danny DeVito, Jack Nicholson and director Robert Zemeckis? False, with an explanation. The studio wanted Winger. Douglas had a lunch with her in Los Angeles that ended "at about 6:00 at night and I don't know how many margaritas later," still with no answer. After scouting Mexico and realizing what mudslides and the jungle would mean for the shoot, he and Zemeckis flew to Texas, where Winger was making Terms of Endearment, for another dinner.

Walking home, she leaned over and bit him on the arm. "I go back to the hotel room. Jesus, it's bleeding," Douglas said. He told the studio he couldn't go into the jungle with her, though he stressed she did it in a fun way. Then an executive mentioned a neighbor who had come by to borrow sugar, an actress named Kathleen Turner who had just done Body Heat. Turner said yes. "No Danny, no Jack," Douglas said.

**Jack Nicholson and the hospital**

Rich asked for a good Nicholson story, and Douglas went back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The production rehearsed for two weeks at the Oregon State Mental Hospital, where the actors sat in group therapy sessions matched to their characters and some slept nights in hospital beds. Nicholson arrived the second week, didn't recognize anyone, and at lunch threw his tray and walked out.

Douglas, worried as the producer, followed him. "Jack, you all right?" Nicholson's reply: "Who are these people?" He was sure they were all patients. "They don't even break character at lunch," Douglas said.

His read on Nicholson's gift: "He is more open in front of a camera than he is outside in real life. He uses the camera as an excuse to be totally vulnerable."

**The Fatal Attraction ending**

True or false: the ending of Fatal Attraction was rewritten twice. False. Once. The original cut ended with Glenn Close's character, with Madame Butterfly playing, slitting her own throat with a knife carrying Douglas's fingerprints. She wins. But Close's performance was so strong that audiences rebelled. "The audience went, no, no, no. You got to kill her."

Close refused at first. "This is the picture that I signed up for," Douglas recalled her saying. He appealed to her theater background, comparing it to a Broadway show tried out of town and changed based on how it plays. "All we're saying is you're so good in this and you're so strong that one of us has got to kill you." She came around, and Douglas said the new ending "really made the picture," the biggest commercial success of that year. The bunny boiler, he noted, was in the script from the beginning. In France, he was told everyone has mistresses so it was nothing, yet "every French wife dragged their husband to that picture," and he lost a lot of male friends who said thanks a lot.

**Oliver Stone and "greed is good"**

True or false: after the first take of the "greed is good" speech in Wall Street, the 500 people in the room gave a standing ovation. True. But the backstory is the running battle with Stone. Two weeks in, the director came to Douglas's trailer and asked if he was doing drugs, "because you look like you never acted before in your life."

Douglas watched the footage, thought it was fine, and eventually understood. Stone wanted a little more nastiness from Gordon Gekko and was willing to have Douglas hate him for the rest of the shoot to get it. When they shot the speech, Stone wasn't even watching him, just following the script to make sure every word was right. Douglas took him into a corner afterward for "a little conversation."

In hindsight, he gave Stone credit, listing James Woods in Salvador, Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July, Charlie Sheen in Platoon, Val Kilmer in The Doors and Kevin Costner in JFK. "This guy has given his actors their best performances." Rich admitted he still uses "This is your wake-up call" on his kids. So does Douglas.

**George Harrison, Bob Dylan and the caviar**

The best story of the day came from the night of Douglas's Golden Globe for Wall Street. Leaving the hotel, he ran into George Harrison in the lobby. He went to the show with his mother, won, did the press backstage, and came out to find everyone gone. He took his mom home and got back to the hotel around 12:30 a.m.

The phone rang. "Hello, Michael. This is George. Me and my mate, we just stay here. We thought we'd come stop by."

Two minutes later, Harrison was at the door with Bob Dylan, and Dylan had "the biggest effing dog I have ever seen in my life," a mastiff the size of a small horse. Douglas ordered a big tin of caviar to celebrate. Dylan sat silent. Then the dog found the caviar and started licking it up, "150 bucks a lick," while Douglas wondered how exactly you tell Bob Dylan's dog to stop.

Finally Dylan looked like he was about to say something. "Far out. He loves caviar."

**The American President and a Senate run**

One more: was the first draft of The American President over 300 pages? It was 375, Douglas said, and much of the cut material resurfaced in Aaron Sorkin's early seasons of The West Wing, where the actor who played Douglas's chief of staff became the president. Douglas sees a direct connection in tone and style.

Did anyone ever ask him to run for office? A couple of times for Senate in California, once against Pete Wilson. Why him? They needed recognition and someone who could afford their own campaign. "Why don't you just get a kamikaze pilot?" he said. Studios also once asked him to run one after Cuckoo's Nest, The China Syndrome and Romancing the Stone. He passed.

Before time ran out, Rich made a case for The Game as underrated, Douglas confirmed he and Danny DeVito were roommates in college and when he first got to New York, and he said there's no role he regrets turning down. "But a whole bunch I'm sure glad I didn't do."