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For a long while, time was kind to Michael Douglas. He turns 66 on September 25th, but if it weren’t for the recent cancer diagnosis, you’d never know it. Now, though, even after his recent, honest yet upbeat appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, people look at him and get concerned. And why not? Michael Douglas has been, for the past few decades, one of the great American actors, playing the charming cad, the should-be-hated but liked-and-loved playboy. Before he became known as the slicked-back shark Gordon Gekko in 1987’s Wall Street, Douglas was known both as an actor on The Streets of San Francisco and for his producing prowess. It still impresses me that he was one of the producers behind the 1975 adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, winning his first Academy Award, this time for Best Picture.

Douglas has been in the spotlight recently, in no small part because of the throat cancer he’s been diagnosed with, but he’s also got a big return to the cinematic spotlight this weekend with the timely sequel to Wall Street, called Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (which is a pity, because my money usually likes to pay for hotels, randomly). As in the predecessor, Douglas will play Gordon Gekko, the financial guru who likes to make as much money as possible, as ruthlessly as possible. For this role, Douglas won a Best Actor Oscar, and there are unsurprising rumblings that he may yet find his way onto this year’s Oscar nominations list. The movie looks nothing if not classy (Douglas stars alongside Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Josh Brolin, and Frank Langella), but who’s to say it’ll hit big? As we consider this, let’s go into this week’s list, about the career of Michael Douglas.

Solitary Man

I want to start off with Douglas’ most recent performance, in the 2010 indie character study Solitary Man. Douglas plays…well, he plays yet another version of the character he always plays, a slick-talking wheeler-dealer. Here, he’s a disgraced car salesman who used to be on the top of the world, one of the faces you’d always see on billboards or on local TV ads. Now, he’s trying to recapture his glory and coast on the looks that still woo some pretty young women. He ends up getting the chance to move forward as he revisits his old college and meets up with some new and old friends. The story, from co-director Brian Koppelman, isn’t the best but there’s no question that the film is worth watching thanks almost completely to Douglas’ tour-de-force performance.

Douglas, of course, gets to show off his effortless chemistry and charisma with a great supporting cast, including Jenna Fischer, Jesse Eisenberg, Mary-Louise Parker, Danny DeVito, and Susan Sarandon. The film’s not flawless, and I wasn’t especially thrilled with the final scene, as it felt a bit too rushed. That said, Solitary Man, an early release that got pretty much buried this spring, is worth watching for being a mature, adult drama with a sterling lead performance. What works isn’t just that Douglas is playing a character that fits him like a glove; obviously, that helps but it makes the performance all that more challenging. If we know he can play this character, what if it looks tired? Douglas is able to find new notes to play here, playing one of the truly loathsome characters of his filmography, a guy no one should like but…well, he’s one of the types to sell you your own shirt. You just buy it.

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