Michael Douglas Honored by SBIFF

One of Hollywood’s all-time most popular leading men, Michael Douglas will be honored at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s gala annual fundraising event with the Award for Excellence in Film named for his father, Kirk Douglas. Previous recipients of this prestigious honor include John Travolta, Ed Harris, Quentin Tarantino, and Harrison Ford. In a press release distributed by the SBIFF, Kirk Douglas said that the first time he saw his son act was in Santa Barbara, when the young Michael Douglas was a student at UCSB. “It is fitting that a career that started here should be honored here,” said Kirk Douglas, who traditionally presides over the event with the same panache he showed on last year’s Academy Award broadcast.

Michael Douglas has to be considered one of the most influential and consistent film stars in history. In addition to dominating 1987 with two blockbusters — Fatal Attraction and Wall Street, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor — Douglas has scored hits and critical acclaim in every decade since his career began in the early 1970s. He was nominated for Emmys in three consecutive years for his role in Streets of San Francisco, and only left the still-popular series in 1975 because he had the idea to produce One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which went on to earn Michael Douglas his first Oscar, as producer of 1975’s Best Picture.

The 1990s saw Douglas in The American President opposite Annette Bening in 1995, among many other significant credits, and the 2000s began with another one of his miracle years, in which Michael Douglas appeared in both Wonder Boys and Traffic. Extending his streak of great films and performances to an incredible fifth decade, Douglas earned a Golden Globe nomination in 2010 for his reprise of the role that won him the Oscar, Gordon Gekko, in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

Internationally recognized as philanthropists and humanitarians as well as talented actors, Michael Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, will be on hand along with a star-studded guest list for this gala, black tie affair. For tickets to the event, or to purchase passes to the upcoming 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which is set to run between January 26 and February 5, 2012, call (805) 963-0023 or visit sbiff.org.