Before I sold Bermuda.com I secured an interview with Hollywood Superstar
Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas talks to Bermuda.com

Special interview by Chris Gibbons

In his first Bermuda interview for more than six years, Hollywood superstar Michael Douglas talks exclusively to Bermuda.com about his love of the Island, his Bermuda family, Golf, his plans for Ariel Sands, why Bermuda's paparazzi-free restaurants beat New York hands-down for a celebrity night out and why he's concerned about the survival of Bermuda's middle class.

He may be one of the famous and powerful faces in Hollywood...
but Oscar-winning movie star and producer Michael Douglas likes to keep a low profile when he’s in Bermuda, the place that he and superstar actress wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, their son Dylan and new addition daughter Carys, born in April, have come to regard as their primary home.
Indeed, it is the privacy that Bermuda affords his family that Douglas cherishes more than anything, enabling them to escape the constant and increasingly intrusive glare of publicity.
When he sat down recently with Bermuda.com, it was only the second interview he had ever given to the local media — the first was in 1997, shortly after becoming involved with Ariel Sands, the Devonshire hotel property owned by the Bermuda Dill family of his mother Diana — and the first since he and Zeta-Jones bought a house in Warwick in 2001.

It was on the verandah of his charming, old Bermuda house...
with its panoramic views of the Great Sound, that Bermuda.com met Douglas, looking relaxed in a well-worn red Hawaiian shirt, loose beige canvas pants and reef sandals. Although he turned 59 on September 25 (the same day Zeta-Jones turned 34), and the trademark sweep of wavy hair is now grey, he looks trim and healthy enough for a man 15 years younger.
Douglas seems physically slighter in the flesh than he perhaps appears on screen but the legendary charisma and charm are unmistakable. He displays few of the airs and graces one might expect of a Hollywood player, just the easy-going confidence of a man who has done it all, enjoys living the life his talent and riches have bought him, and knows exactly the value of his own currency. He's a courteous, engaging conversationalist whether talking about his family, golf, seeing Paul McCartney play live, or his father Kirk, "still going strong at 86".
Although he and the growing Douglas family spend two to three months on the Island at a time — the family real estate also includes homes in New York and Aspen — he is here on his own this time, a flying visit to inspect the damage inflicted on the house and Ariel Sands by Hurricane Fabian 11 days earlier.

"We were actually scheduled to come down on the Friday, the day it hit,"...
he explained, but my wife was coming back from the Venice Film Festival, I had the kids and we were in Colorado so we thought maybe we should meet in New York and think this one out! Then we just watched it on TV".
"Amazingly, the cell phones worked pretty well here through the whole attack so we were able to stay in touch. Our estate manager, called me in New York and says, 'There's a lull and I think it's passed so I’m going outside to see what the damage is'. And I said, 'I'm watching it here — that’s not a lull, that's called the eye!' He went back up to one of three houses on the property and by the time he got back, whoosh, it came through again."
As Douglas says, at that point he was less concerned about the properties than the safety of the people in them.
"John O'Brien, our manager down at Ariel, had some horror stories. One of those mini tornados came through and took the roof off a couple of the guest cottages, so at the height of it, he had to go up and get the guests out of the room. He said, "Michael I cannot tell you what the sand and salt on your face felt like. We were on all fours going down there. I was as scared as I've ever been."
Added Douglas: "I've got to say how impressed I was with everyone with the clean up after the hurricane. The Government should take a lot of credit, the Regiment work was fantastic — I mean it was really impressive and the attitude of Bermudians was great to see."
"When it was over, we lost a small part of a roof — more damage was prevented by using Styrofoam ballast under the eaves to prevent the wind lifting the slate up — some avocado trees and small cedars did not fare so well! The palmettos didn’t even blink,” he added. "All over the Island they did pretty well — they're just amazing." Ariel, though, suffered "substantial damage" said Douglas. John O'Brien estimates the damage at around $2.5 million with an additional $250,000 or so in lost revenue but the hotel planned to be back in business by the end of September rather than close up shop for the winter.

"There's some decent business coming up,"...
Douglas explained. "John's done a great job down there and we've had a good year, our advertising has paid off and the board meetings were nice for the first time in a long time."
Douglas is also excited about plans to develop the Ariel property which will see thirteen $3 million luxury villas built between the hotel and South Shore Road, each with its own spa facilities, garden and infinity plunge pools.
"The villas are going to be real nice, good-sized four bedroom places, and then we have some other plans for the hotel," he said. "We'll do some additional rooms, move the spa out to the conference centre and enlarge the pool. If all goes well, it should put the family in good shape."
It is, he reasons, the smart thing to do if the hotel is going to remain viable as tourism on the Island continues a seemingly downward spiral.

"Tourism, I don’t need to tell you, is really hard...
-it's terrible, especially for a hotel our size," stated Douglas. "What I see right now is that unless you get a lot of hotels and airlines coming in you've got to be a 4 or 5 star hotel. Bermuda is going to be expensive because you can't compete with the Caribbean with the airfares and package deals you can do there. Also we're at that awkward size, 47 rooms, where we can put up 20-25 more rooms without a dramatic increase in employees, only house-keeping really, then you can start really making a go. You're talking about a place that is dramatically seasonal so you’ve got to be 95 to 100 per cent full during high season to win."
Although he maintains a keen interest in local politics and personalities, Douglas is reluctant to talk publicly about the Island’s tourism policies.
"I think Catherine and I make a concerted effort to promote Bermuda in all our interviews and TV, we really do," he explained. "She loves it down here and so do I".
However, he suggests that maybe the marketing needs to be turned up "a few decibels".

"People don't know where Bermuda is half the time...
but when they get here they are surprised how nice it is. I've been to the Caribbean and I don't like to go to resorts and feel like I'm in a compound where I go out of the gates and there's this huge economic disparity [between locals and tourists]. I take pride in race relations in Bermuda compared to a lot of other Caribbean islands. This is something to continue to discuss and improve, but generally I think they are good."
"Bermuda overseas has a low profile," he said, adding with a smile, "Which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing". I don't think this is ever going to be a mass tourism destination — we just don't have the beds. One thing I never understood was why it was so difficult to fill beds for a place that is as nice as this but I've done the math and flights to Bermuda are the most expensive per mile flight anywhere in the world! If we can get the Miami link and then get Virgin or something into Europe, I think that would be great. I mean for Germans, January in Bermuda is nirvana!"
Certainly if Tourism could ever afford him, Douglas would be the ideal pitchman for Bermuda as he needs little persuasion to eulogise about it.

"For a start, this island has more great restaurants per capita than anything I've ever seen!"...
he stated ands rattles off a few favourites, including The Waterlot, Coconuts, and the late lamented Mickey’s and Lido at Fabian-flattened Elbow Beach. "The Seahorse Grill up in the hotel at Elbow is also really nice. The new one at Grape Bay Beach Hotel (formerly The White Sands) Sapori, is really good. Claudio Vigilante is doing a real good job with Aqua at Ariel Sands. Then in town you've got Port of Call, Little Venice, L'Oriental, Harbourfront, Primavera, Ascots ... I mean, Bermuda has a great bunch of really good restaurants which you never hear about in travel articles."
The Barracuda Grill is another favourite and Mrs. Douglas has been known to enthusiastically lend her Welsh singing talents in a sing along in the Hog Penny pub afterwards.
And of course Douglas, a keen player, loves the golf. He's a member at Mid Ocean and Riddell's Bay and plays around the Island whenever he can. This particular week he had played Riddell's Bay twice and Port Royal. "The family's not here, so there's no guilt!" he laughed.

"The golf here is incredible especially compared to the Caribbean,"...
he enthused. "Nevis has one course. Jamaica, which is a big country, doesn't have the proportion of courses Bermuda does. Nowhere comes close to the amount of golf you can play on an island this size".
"It would be nice to get St George's done up a bit more. They are all recovering from the hurricane but Ocean View is in great shape, and so is Port Royal. Jack Nicklaus, I think, called it one of the great public courses in the world. The world! I haven't played Belmont Hills yet but I have played Tucker’s Point. It's beautiful."
Although he plays in the annual Blackie Talbot Charity Tournament in Bermuda — "a great event" — he rules out the chances of him bringing his own annual Michael Douglas and Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament to town. "The logistics are tough," he shrugs. "We have our home in Las Vegas with Caesar's Palace and that is distance enough to get celebrities there. I would be happy to do something but mine is geared to raise money for the Motion Picture and Television Fund so I've got to pull in 9 to 12 celebrities, which is hard enough even in Las Vegas without trying to bring them out here."

He remains committed to issues outside of movies...
not least his role as a United Nations Messenger of Peace which has seen him film a documentary about child soldiers in Sierra Leone, and continue to speak out about nuclear proliferation and landmines — a cause for which he and Catherine were honoured last week by Sir Paul and Heather McCartney at their star-studded Adopt-A-Minefield Gala in Los Angeles. The Douglases donated funds to clear a minefield in Cambodia and also raised nearly $450,000 to support emergency demining in Afghanistan. As a result of their efforts, more than 600,000 square metres of land have been cleared and returned to productive use.
And they plan to become increasingly involved with issues closer to home.
"Culturally I think Bermuda is pretty impressive in terms of what exists and the organisations here, so I’m more conscious about other things. For example, I don’t want Bermuda to lose its middle class. One of the strong things on this island is its really good, strong middle class and with all this influx of big business, the disparities become big so there are some people who really need help".
"Although we support the Dramatic Society, the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute and the Masterworks programmes, which are all good, I think generally we’re trying to identify some causes that are more community-related. We make contributions to a number of charities on the Island and last year we did an event at Ariel Sands for the Family Learning Centre, Project 100 and Operation Smile."
Somewhat surprisingly, given his background, he recently turned down a request to become a board member of the Bermuda International Film Festival but as he explained: "We don't like to lend our names to something unless we're going to be actively involved and this was just one more organization asking me to be on their board. I'm happy to give them a movie for a fundraiser (One Night At McCools and It Runs In The Family both had their international premieres at the Festival) or if we're here, to come in and do a talk or a workshop."
The chances of a Michael Douglas-produced movie being shot on the Island are remote too, it seems.
"My brother Joel and I were fooling around with one of the hangars at the airport one time. But it's really hard from a cost point of view. I mean sure, I'd like nothing better than to go out of my front door and go to work but it's a hard pull. Having said that, this digital age is changing so much as far as digital cameras and everything. You're going to see more and more feature films being done digitally which really reduces the costs a lot. People will be able to have their own agencies down here with all the communications and video transfer facilities."
He also has misgivings about the industry moving in on "his island"."Let's put it this way," he laughs, "I’d never let a movie company in my house!"

Indeed, Douglas and his family value Bermuda as a bolthole from the rest of the world...
Douglas, whose mother Diana Dill was married to the legendary actor Kirk Douglas, was a frequent visitor to the Island through some reckless teenage years — he once rode a Mobylette into the sea and partied as hard as anyone during College Weeks.
"I had my first birthday here, and until I was 18 I came here a lot during summer and spring breaks," he recalled. "Then I went to college in California and from them on it was sporadic. Then 6 or 7 years ago I started getting involved with Ariel Sands and saw this as an opportunity to bring the Dill family together." A family group picture on the wall of the Ariel lobby is testament to the extensive roots that Douglas has on the Island, although he says it was wife Catherine who persuaded him to buy a home here.
"Catherine and I were living in New York, where I've had an apartment for years, and we were thinking it would be nice to have a place in the country so we could get out of the city once in a while. We were not big fans of the Hamptons, we liked Connecticut and then I brought Catherine down here and I warned her: 'I've got a big family', but she just fell in love with it, the fact that they drive on the left side of the road, the Queen and all that. I must say from my family's perspective, it hasn't been overbearing. Because we all live so close together, the Island has an incredible ability to respect everybody's privacy, which is good for us".

"The best thing is that there's no paparazzi...
and this I can't tell you, is such a blessing and a joy for us".
The couple likes being able to enjoy a quiet dinner without attracting too much attention. "In New York, by the time you've finished your meal, there's press pictures. You deal with it all the time. It's life and there's a lot worse things but privacy issues have become more and more important, what with the internet and what you can do with digital cameras and all that stuff. People have got more and more greedy about it.
"We just love it and we're really happy here. The communications are really great. It's easy for Catherine's family to get flights from Gatwick and come on down and it's just an hour and 40 minutes from New York — it can take that long to get up to the Hamptons. The time change is good for us too, not having to go to Los Angeles all the time.
"We've found it to be a great respite for our family. We had no idea what a great place it was for kids. It's just great for raising kids." Son Dylan attends pre-school on the Island and can frequently be spotted with mum and dad enjoying the Island's outdoor lifestyle.
With their wealth, many locals were surprised the couple chose to live in Warwick rather than one of the more exclusive areas of the Island. Douglas explained: "We knew we didn't want to be down in Tucker's Town because there's nothing to do down there! All the homes are empty most of the time and it’s a haul to go and get something to eat. I knew I didn’t want to be way out west and this is a nice proximity for town".
"We also went around in a friend's boat and were looking at houses from the water and knew we probably didn't want to be on the water. I said to Catherine, 'Honey, if you and I are looking in at the houses, you know if we get one on the water, there are going to be some other people looking in!' No, we’re really happy with this area."

When they are on the Island, Douglas said the family likes to lead a normal family life...
"In the mornings we take our kid to pre-school then we work out or play golf, have lunch and then, because of the time difference at 1 o’clock it’s 9 a.m. in LA, so from 2 to about 6 or 7 I'm working or reading. But other than that we get together with friends, do normal stuff ... take a nap! We're pretty easy really."
But after a busy last few years which has seen the couple appear opposite each other in Traffic, Douglas starred in The In-Laws and The Wonder Boys, and with dad Kirk in It Runs In The Family, not to mention the birth of Carys and Catherine's Oscar-winning performance in Chicago, Douglas is taking it easy for the immediate future. The family will be based in Bermuda from October through mid-December and Douglas said with a smile: "This fall I'm just going to enjoy my kids.”
And with Bermuda as the perfect location, of course.
Copyright: Bermuda.com Ltd
(Reprinting of this article only by permission of Bermuda.com Ltd)
Visitors Since October 1st 2003

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