Michael Douglas's 'One Helluva Ride': the wild stories

Okay, so Page Six reports that Michael Douglas has a new memoir called “One Helluva Ride,” and if the stories it has pulled from the book are any indication, the title isn't just for show.

Per Page Six, Douglas writes that in the late '90s, when he got serious with Catherine Zeta-Jones, she told him she wanted monogamy. His response, as he tells it: “Wait here, I have to make five quick calls.” Zeta-Jones repeated the line in disbelief. Douglas says he made sure the women he was seeing lived in different cities, which he felt was a respectful way to be nonmonogamous.

Page Six also reports that Douglas and Danny DeVito shared an Upper West Side apartment before either was famous. Their warning system was a sock on the doorknob. Douglas writes that there were stretches when DeVito lived outside the apartment more than in it.

When he was about 18, per Page Six, Douglas writes that he had an affair with a friend of his mother's. He calls her his Mrs. Robinson. She taught him, he says, plenty, including what women liked, and “The Graduate” later felt like a documentary to him.

Per Page Six, Douglas spent part of his time at UC Santa Barbara on a commune and took LSD more than 100 times over three years. “Because I was a man of restraint,” he notes. To pay tuition, Douglas writes, he used two soft leather Italian suitcases from his father to smuggle 44 kilos of marijuana per run. He did it twice and graduated without debt.

According to Page Six, Douglas also writes that there was always a crew member on set who could get him anything, that he once did cocaine with O.J. Simpson and Jann Wenner in the '70s, and that he entered rehab in 1992.

The memoir also includes low moments. Page Six reports that Douglas writes about a drunken 1990 Golden Globes altercation with Julia Roberts, when he believed she was nuzzling his then-13-year-old son Cameron. He says he told her to take her hands off his son and take her Golden Globe somewhere the sun doesn't shine. He sent roses and apologized in person.

The book covers his affairs, too. Page Six reports that Douglas had one with Kathleen Turner on “Romancing the Stone.” He writes that he fell “very hard” for Jeanne Tripplehorn on “Basic Instinct” and was ready to leave his wife for her, but decided jumping from one serious relationship into another would have been the worst thing. He says the relationship lasted through production.

There is a softer side, too. Page Six reports that Douglas writes about his father, Kirk Douglas, who died in 2020 at 103. He says his father was from the hitting generation, and that Douglas learned to stay quiet and stay away when he raged. He also says their relationship was transformed in the last third of Kirk's life.

Page Six reports that Douglas and Zeta-Jones separated in 2013 and reconciled the following year. He writes, “I love Catherine in a way that I have never loved any other woman.” Their marriage, he says, deserved a second chance.

• Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Danny DeVito
• memoir
• Michael Douglas
• One Helluva Ride
• Page Six