The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 43 Michael Douglas

Every week through the remainder of 2014, Yahoo Movies is counting down Hollywood’s 50 very best working actors and actresses. Come back to Yahoo Movies every Thursday to see who makes the cut.

Greatest Actor Alive (No. 43): Michael Douglas

Age: 69 

Stating the Case: One of four sons of “Spartacus” star and Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas is best known for playing flawed, vulnerable men whose romantic and sexual dalliances often get the better of him. Those include obsessed San Francisco cop Nick Curran in "Basic Instinct" (1992), New York lawyer and adulterer Dan Gallagher in "Fatal Attraction" (1987), “sexually harassed” computer specialist Tom Sanders in "Disclosure" (1994), and stubborn would-be divorcé Dan Rose in "The War of the Roses" (1989).

He’s also great at playing total badasses, such as tough guy NYC cop Nick Conklin (the second of three “Nick” parts to date, FYI) in Ridley Scott’s "Black Rain" (1989), swaggering soldier of fortune Jack T. Colton in "Romancing the Stone" (1984), and professional big-game hunter Charles Remington in "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996). He can also go full-throttle villain, as with his Oscar-winning portrayal of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" (1987), a role he revisited in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" (2012), and as scheming rich cuckold Steven Taylor in "A Perfect Murder" (1998).

Oh, and he can play the president of the United States, who also happens to be a dashing single father, in one of his most beloved films, "The American President" (1995).

Breakthrough Role: Douglas had mini-hits with "Coma" (1978) and "The China Syndrome" (1979), but the film that made him a bona fide movie star was “Romancing the Stone” (1984), a romantic comedy variation on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981). Douglas secured his heartthrob status as rugged adventurer Jack T. Colton, a role he reprised in the film’s lesser but still enjoyable sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile" (1985).

The Best of the Best:

5. "Traffic" (2000): Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro provided the soul of “Traffic” but Michael Douglas was most definitely the heart of Steven Soderbergh’s intense, multi-character examination of the drug trade. Douglas brought tough love to his role as Robert Wakefield, an Ohio judge spearheading the president’s war on drugs while his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) smokes crack in seedy hotel rooms.

4. "The Game" (1997): David Fincher’s thriller remix of “A Christmas Carol” (kinda, right?) features Douglas as Scrooge stand-in Nicholas Van Orton, a reclusive San Francisco investment banker whose miserable existence gets a much-needed dose of chaos when his ne’er-do-well brother (Sean Penn) gives him a rather unique birthday present.

3. “Fatal Attraction” (1987): Douglas inspired an entire nation of men to look but don’t touch in director Adrian Lyne’s crowd-pleasing B-movie horror thriller chronicling the sordid, violent and bats—t insane aftermath of the most ill-advised one-night stand in history.

2. "Wonder Boys" (2000): Douglas showed he could be downright lovable as Grady Tripp, an English professor whose various personal flaws and self-inflicted misadventures actually somehow make him a better person. Had the film been released in any month other than February, Douglas would’ve most certainly scored an Oscar nomination.

1. “Wall Street” (1987): However, Douglas did receive and Oscar nomination — and an Oscar win — for his portrayal of Gordon Gekko, the dark financial wizard whose personal and professional philosophy goes a little something like “greed is good.” The character of Gekko would go on to inspire such pillars of honesty and moral conviction as Jordan Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

The BIGGEST Hit: “Fatal Attraction” (1987) really connected with audiences (as in scared the hell out of them), earning $156 million at the domestic box office. Another Michael Douglas sex-themed movie, “Basic Instinct” (1992), is the international champ with a worldwide box-office take of $353 million.

With Honors: Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Actor, Drama for his performance as Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street.” The Hollywood Foreign Press Association loves him: He also received Golden Globe nominations for “The War of the Roses,” “The American President,” “Wonder Boys,” and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”

Douglas has also received a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 2009 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the HFPA in 2004.

Really Fun Fact: According to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Douglas used the following pick-up line upon first meeting his future wife: “I want to father your children.” He got what he wanted, as they have two kids: son Dylan Michael (born Aug. 8, 2000) and daughter Carys Zeta (born April 20, 2003).

Trademark: Film historian David Thomson put it best when he said Douglas is capable of playing characters who are “weak, culpable, morally indolent, compromised, and greedy for illicit sensation without losing that basic probity or potential for ethical character that we require of a hero.” He also tends to play guys who clearly have a heavy sexual appetite.

Catchphrase:

Most Underappreciated Achievement: "Falling Down" (1993) should have earned Douglas his second Oscar nomination, though, like “Wonder Boys” seven years later, it was probably hurt by its February theatrical release. Douglas unleashes his fury upon Los Angeles as William Foster, aka D-Fens, a recently laid-off defense worker and divorcee who one morning just completely and totally loses it while stuck in L.A. traffic. Armed with his briefcase and, later, a baseball bat, and submachine gun, he lets loose on some of the city’s most undesirable denizens and institutions, much to the chagrin — and fascination — of Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall), a veteran detective who’s scheduled to retire that same day.

Best Fan Tribute: Somewhat surprisingly, it’s Douglas’s D-Fens from “Falling Down” who gets the most fan art love, like this piece from SBdrawings on Deviant Art.

Moonlighting: Douglas won a Golden Globe and Emmy Award for his fantastic performance as Liberace in the HBO feature, "Beyond the Candelabra" (2013). He’s also served as a producer of several of his own films — and several in which he doesn’t star, most notably "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" (1975), which won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Douglas also played Inspector Steven Keller, the young partner of veteran homicide detective Lt. Mike Stone (Karl Malden), in 98 episodes of "The Streets of San Francisco" (1972-77). Douglas left the series early in the fifth season upon the success of “Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Nobody’s Perfect: Following the critical success of the 2000 double bill of “Traffic” and “Wonder Boys,” the entire aughts were a bit rocky for Douglas. It ended up being a decade of mostly lame romantic comedies like "The In-Laws" (2003), "You, Me and Dupree" (2006), and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009); bizarre odes to nepotism like "It Runs in the Family" (2003); forgettable thrillers like "Don’t Say a Word" (2001) and "The Sentinel" (2006). Hey, at least he spent most of the decade going home to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

And for His Next Acts: Douglas will be seen this summer opposite Diane Keaton in the romantic comedy, "And So It Goes," the story of a self-centered realtor whose life gets thrown for a loop when he’s suddenly left in charge of the granddaughter he never knew existed. The film reunites Douglas with his “American President” director, Rob Reiner.

Douglas will also be seen as Hank Pym in Marvel’s "Ant-Man," hitting theaters on July 17, 2015.

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 50 Brad Pitt]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 49 Sigourney Weaver]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 48 Joaquin Phoenix]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 47 Paul Giamatti]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 46 Forest Whitaker]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 45 Matthew McConaughey]

[The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 44: Viola Davis]

What qualifies actors for a slot on Yahoo Movies’ running list of the 50 Greatest Actors Alive? First, we limited the pool to actors who are still currently working. Other factors taken into consideration: Pure skill in the craft; their ability to disappear underneath the skin of the characters they portray; versatility and the range of their roles; ratio of strong performances to weak ones; quality of films acted in; quality of recent work; awards and accolades from peers.