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One Helluva Ride

The explosive memoir from the Academy Award-winning actor and Hollywood legend

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One Helluva Ride

By: Michael Douglas
Narrated by: Michael Douglas
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A boy lost in the shadow of his father's legacy.

A gifted artist dismissed as just a "TV actor."

A first-time film producer who stunned the world by winning an Oscar at 31.

A maverick who changed Hollywood and became a global movie star.

Hollywood icon Michael Douglas tells the unfiltered story of his life for the first time.

"I spent a significant portion of my career playing some version of the modern, flawed, American male. You'll see from these pages that it wasn't exactly a stretch for me."

Beginning with his fractured childhood and a complex relationship with his superstar father, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas finally gives the full and uncensored account of a remarkable life. One Helluva Ride reveals incredible behind-the-scenes stories featuring a Who's Who of Hollywood, many of them never revealed before and some outrageously funny, with an unflinching honesty about his sometimes bad-boy life.

Initially dismissed as just the handsome son of a legendary movie star, at age thirty-one he shook up Hollywood when he won his first Oscar for producing the five-time Academy Award-winning classic film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Told he would never be anything more than a "TV actor," he quit the hit series The Streets of San Francisco to become an international movie star, with a list of classic films that have grossed billions of dollars, winning a second Oscar for his riveting performance as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.

"I can't think about my life without thinking of my movies," Douglas says, and he recounts his career through twelve of his most iconic films, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, War of the Roses, Basic Instinct, Falling Down, The American President, Traffic and Behind the Candelabra. These movies not only captured the cultural zeitgeist but often defined it.

Yet as Douglas's fame grew, so did his personal struggles. He recounts the full, unfiltered story of his turbulent first mar­riage; infidelity and affairs with some of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood; his own serious struggle with alcohol, drugs and rehab; the heartbreaking fight to save his son from an addiction that sent him to prison; and his against-all-odds battle with stage IV cancer.

He saw Catherine Zeta Jones on a movie screen and instantly fell for her. Their incredible love story transformed his life and proved all the tabloids wrong, enduring after twenty-five years of marriage.

Father, son, husband, actor, producer, brother and friend. This is the real, raw, deeply honest and vulnerable Michael Douglas you don't know―until now.©2026 Michael Douglas (P)2026 Hachette Book Group USA Entertainment & Celebrities Funny Celebrity War Entertainment
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Wow - what a life & boy what a story! This book is simply terrific, Searingly Honest ,open & thoroughly entertaining. A joy to listen to.
At this point I want to call out my fellow reviewers who very ungraciously have commentated on Michael's narration. First off its fine, Michael is unmistakably Michael so don't fret! Yes you can hear the impact of his battle with throat cancer but so what.. No one could have narrated his story as he does- He lived this life no one else and narrates it superbly with verve, inflection & humour. I always know if I am loving a book when even though long I didn't want it to end and long is not boring ..in this instance long is 100% entertaining and absorbing. In short wonderful & engaging. Thank you Mr. Douglas for sharing you life with us.

Possibly the book of the year!

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If the stories are what you came for, the print or ebook is the better edition. The life is worth the time. The voice that survived the cancer is worth respecting. It is simply not the ideal instrument for a nineteen-hour narration, long words and whole clauses drop into a garble; you lean in, rewind and still lose lines. It is not carelessness - it’s the cost of the treatment that kept him here to write this marvellous book.

Definitely worth your time but…….

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A life story of an extraordinary man. The detail he goes into is immense, not sugar coated but perhaps as honest an autobiography as you could get. When I listened to Michael reading his dad's autobiography I am Spartacus his voice made that into an even greater book. This time obviously Michael has suffered with cancer and thankfully survived his ordeal, so his voice isn't what it once was. This, I'm sorry to say makes a lot of the words hard to pick up. a few times I went back and listened to them again. Considering the trauma he must have gone through he has to be admired to do this book in audible. Every chapter was about a part of his life in great detail. Michael is one of the last of that era who was part of the old Hollywood and the new generation of film making, this gives us an insight of a different era that has long gone. The story kept me interested throughout and I enjoyed it. To me he comes across as a decent man who wasn't perfect but admitted that. I'm 74 now and I remember from when I was young watching him in the Streets of San Francisco and thinking how much he looked like his dad and what a good actor he was. He as turned out to be, in my humble opinion a better actor, and person than his father ever was. That's some achievement. Thanks Michael for a great book.

The son of Spartacus

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The first thing that struck me about the book was that the author should have gotten someone else to narrate it. l understand that he would want to read his own book, but at times it was struggle to understand due to his slurring. The story itself is brutally honest and revealing, it does not do Michael any favours in the selfish and womanising department. You have to feel sorry for his first wife and son and wonder why Catherine Zeta Jones would touch him with a barge pole. It takes you through his childhood and tells you about his life in film order. its honest, open, sleazy, not particularly surprising, but interesting enough to hold your attention. l thought he was a dirtbag before the book, nothing has changed my opinion about him but now its confirmed.

Just as l always suspected

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I enjoyed most of this and liked the honesty and wit and stories about him and others. There was some boring guff but most was entertaining and interesting, But, sorry I really did struggle with his narratjon, it was too jumbled and slurred. Authors for so many reasons choose to read themselves and 9 out of 10 times it is a mistake.

interesting

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