The superstar couple face their toughest challenge as Michael’s son is sent to prison, turning their world – and their marriage – upside down. Matthew Denby reports.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ ultimate nightmare came true last week, with the news that the veteran actor’s son Cameron will be spending the next five years behind bars in a tough New York prison.
Now the couple are struggling to get their relationship back on track, as Michael deals with intense feelings of guilt and shame over his son’s descent.
A stressed Catherine has been so affected by the emotional upheaval at home she has shed a dramatic amount of weight.
Last week Cameron was found guilty of possession and dealing ethamphetamine and cocaine – despite pleas from both Michael and Catherine to the judge to take his deeply troubled background into account.
Michael confessed in a letter to the judge that he was admitted to an Arizona clinic in the 1990s for alcohol abuse, and was often absent when Cameron was growing up. The star is now said to be obsessing over his failures as a father -often leaving Catherine at her wits’ end.
“I love my son, but I’m not blind to his actions,” Michael wrote in a heartbreaking submission to judge Richard Berman begging for leniency.
“I don’t want to see him break. “He is an adult and responsible for his own actions. We do know, however, that genes, family and peer pressure are all a strong influence on a substance abuser.
“I have some idea of the pressure of finding your own identity with a famous father. I’m not sure I can comprehend it with two generations to deal with.”
Michael, whose father is screen legend Kirk Douglas, admitted that his “bad marriage” to first wife Diandra contributed to his son’s downfall.
“Cameron grew up a single child in a bad marriage,” he wrote. “Cameron found his family in the gang mentality.”
Catherine added that Cameron was a “caring, considerate, worthy human being” who never let his addictions affect his relationship with her children, Dylan, 9, and Carys, 7.
But the pleas fell largely on deaf ears, with the judge instructing Cameron’s supporters to “get over the idea” he was a victim and calling Michael and Diandra “distant”, “problematic” and “immature” parents when their son was growing up.
For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 26, 2010.
