Dark Legacy Of Douglas Fame

In a tell-all memoir Cameron Douglas opens up about his drug abuse, jail time and life in the shadow of superstars

- Lindsay De Freitas

HE WAS born into movie royalty – a life where money was no object, homes were fabulous, the rich and famous wafted around at all hours of the day and night and a squadron of staff were on duty 24/7. But the old cliché that money doesn’t buy happiness has seldom been truer than in the case of Cameron Douglas, son of movie star Michael Douglas and grandson of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas.

In his case it resulted in feelings of neglect, crippling drug addiction and a harrowing jail experience. But Cameron (40), Michael’s son from his marriage to model and TV producer Diandra Luker (63), clawed his way back from the brink and is now living a clean, productive life.

In his new memoir, Long Way Home, Cameron charts his journey from wild childhood to anguished adulthood where all he cared about was his next drug fix.

And being a member of a famous family helped him down the path of darkness, he says.

Cameron was nine when his dad won the best actor Oscar for Wall Street in 1987 – an accolade that catapulted Michael into the stratosphere of the super famous. Wild parties followed at Michael and Diandra’s Hollywood home and young Cameron would be ordered to fetch dagga for the guests.

“Even as a really young kid I remember running joints back and forth. Dad would say, ‘Hey, bring this over to your uncle,’ and I would,” he writes.

He’d also “creep from house to house on the [ family] compound, climbing balconies and seeing beautiful grown-ups doing the things that beautiful grownups living lives of excess do”.

Cameron and a friend would rifle through guests’ bags after the parties, looking for whatever substances they’d been using during the wild night.

He had his first joint at 13, snorted cocaine at 15 and had his first hit of crystal meth at 17, eventually becoming addicted to liquid cocaine and heroin.