The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Annual Tribute Gala
Honoring Michael Douglas
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Emmy, Golden Globe and two time Academy Award winner Michael Douglas was celebrated at the Film Society’s 37th Annual Chaplin Award Gala on the evening of Monday May 24th at Alice Tully Hall. The event was attended by many of Douglas's most celebrated collaborators and friends, such as Danny Devito, Erika Christiansen, Milos Forman, Curtis Hanson, Tobey Maguire, Barbara Walters, as well as Douglas's wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and his father, the legendary Kirk Douglas, with a special performance by Michael's longtime-friend singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, plus film clips commemorating Douglas's lauded career.
The festivities closed with dessert & dancing at the after-party which was co-hosted by Justin Bartha, Adrien Brody, Piper Perabo, and the New Wave Committee, also taking place in the glass atrium.
"The Board is very excited to have Michael Douglas as this year’s recipient of The Chaplin Award," said Ann Tenenbaum, The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Board Chairman. "Throughout his career, Michael has entertained audiences both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, and it will be an honor to showcase his diverse body of work."
The Film Society’s Annual Gala began in 1972 and honored Charles Chaplin – who returned to the US from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been renamed for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry’s most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and most recently, Tom Hanks.
"It will be an honor to add Michael Douglas to our list of past honorees, I am really looking forward to creating another fabulous evening as we celebrate Michael’s career achievements among friends and fans," said Liz Swig, Gala co-chair and Film Society Board Member.
An actor with over thirty years of experience in theatre, film, and television, Douglas produced his first feature production in 1975 with the Academy Award-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Since then, as a producer and as an actor-producer, Michael has proven to have an intuition for choosing projects that reflect changing trends and public concerns such as, The China Syndrome and Traffic. Over that past three and a half decades Douglas has also starred in many box-office blockbusters and pop culture favorites, including; Romancing the Stone, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, The War of the Roses, Disclosure, The American President, The Game, Wonder Boys, Don’t Say A Word, The In-Laws, The Sentinel, You, Me & Dupree, King of California, and Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past. Michael has also been a behind the scenes force for well know hits with stellar casts, like Flatliners, John Woo’s Face Off, John Grisham’s The Rainmaker and One Night at McCool’s. This year Douglas is returning to his National Board of Review, Golden Globe, & Academy Award winning role of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2; Money Never Sleeps, again directed by Oliver Stone with co-stars Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan and Josh Brolin as well as Solitary Man co-directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-staring Susan Sarandon, Danny Devito, Mary Louise-Parker, Jenna Fischer and Jesse Eisenberg.
In 1998 Douglas was appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace. He is a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament and the control of small arms, and he sits on the Board of Ploughshares Fund. In 2009 Michael joined the project Soldiers of Peace, a movie against all wars and for global peace as well as Nuclear Tipping Point, about the journey that brought four prominent architects, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Schultz, of America's nuclear deterrence policies, to a startling conclusion: it's time to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. Douglas has also hosted 10 years of the "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf event that raised over $5 million dollars for the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Michael is the son of legendary actor Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill. He attended The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut and received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1968, where he is also the Honorary President of the UCSB Alumni Association.
Douglas is married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones and they share September 25th as a birthday. Michael and Catherine have two children, Dylan Michael and Carys Zeta. Michael has an older son, Cameron, from an earlier marriage.
