The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 28

Page 28 S.F. EXAMINER April 5, 1979 After being Mobil Man of the Month, then what? Bv Ben Fong-Torres Rolling Stone 1 A line guaranteed to get a 'laugh1 In The China Syndrome," an actor playing a physicist predicts that an accident at the fictional nuclear reactor in Ventana could wipe out an area the size of Pennsylvania. These days, that line gets an uncomfortable laugh. Last week's accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa, was an unnerving example of life Imitating art Michael Douglas, producer and costar of the film, said Thursday the accident the worst in the history of VS. nuclear power production was "disturbingly ironic." The Interview on this page was conducted before the accident occurred, but Douglas told the Associated Press that the film incident was a composite of a 1970 accident at Commonwealth Edison's Dresden No.

2 plant in Morris, and a 1975 fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Alabama. "We went through a lot of struggle too make the film as honest as possible," Douglas said. And after last Wednesday, it's a profitable one. WEN HE PULLS his hands back over his forehead, Michael Douglas reminds you of TO his father Kirk, with those intense green eyes and that square, hand-me-down-Jaw clefted ith what Michael calls 'the KD. dimple." His long hair Is ruffled; his 7 knit maroon tie is undone, and his shirt sleeves are not quite rolled up to the elbows.

Behind him is a poster in Japanese, advertising "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," hich he reproduced in 1975. Douglas, 34, who lives in Santa Barbara, is in the Hollywood office of his Big Stick Production Co, talking about his latest production, "The China Syndrome As he talks about the film and about his life, he calls in help whenever he needs to nail down a fact. Douglas Is an open sort He says he had no strong pro or anti-nuke stance before coming across the script, "other than generally being a Michael Douglas, right, with Jane Fonda In 'The China Syndrome' a grim example of life Imitating art tries to make it all sound tedious. "Having a lot of choices And nothing restricted either because of a familial structure or a work structure." Or, I suggest, financial limits. Douglas laughs, as if suddenly remembering a luxury of that time.

"Yeah," he allows, "you didn't have to answer to anybody!" But I say, they naturally observed all legal limits. "Oh," he surprised. "But by that time, we were obviously very much in love." They were married last March and have a four-month-old son named Cameron. Her only concern was California. "When I first came, it was difficult I didnt know anyone, and everyone there is involved with movies and TV.

I was ignorant and would just sit there. But after two years, I'm a pro." Diandra appears in "The China Syndrome," as a newscaster ready to substitute for Jane Fonda. "I had a couple of party scenes, too, but they had to cut the film down. All the nonimportant characters were sliced out It was just for fun." Between his marriage and The China Syndrome," there was "Coma," in which Douglas starred opposite Genevieve Bujold. This was a warmup, he explains.

"I hadn't done anything for a year and a half so this was a chance to start getting into acting." "Coma," like "China Syndrome," had an anti-greed motif: "It was about a black market on organs. These doctors had a thing rigged up, and they were putting healthy patients into a coma and selling their organs to the highest bidder. It was good," says Douglas. And then he laughs. Douglas recently finished another acting role, in a film called "Running." fit's about a competitive runner who's never quite made it and decides to make one last try for the Olympics.

It's really And, in an unrelated project, he appears in a television special about running. The program is being produced by his brother Joel, 31. Mike Douglas talks about wanting to take things easy for a while, and says he'd like to find a partner to help him run his production company while he gets more involved in acting. Yet he's looking at two scripts right now for films he might produce. "1 think my biggest asset as a producer Js having good instincts," he says, "My other asset is tenacity.

On "China I Just hung in there until it all finally came together." Inaugural Eve, "After the concert there was a reception upstairs to meet the President and I looked across the room (the song "Some Enchanted Evening" must be flashing in Douglas' head). "You know, 'across a crowded corny thing and I saw Diandra and asked her to marry me three weeks later, and we got married two months after that "I fell in love instantaneously," Douglas says. "I have not quite figured it out It never happened to ma before." Diandra Luker had been In the United States three years at the time of the party. She was only 20, a student at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Majorca, she speaks five languages and was planning to go into diplomatic work.

She had no idea who Michael Douglas was. Even if she had, she wouldn't have recognized him, anyway. "He had this enormous, burly beard," she says. "He looked like a painter or sculptor." They were introduced, she recalls and moved to the hors d'oeuvres table. "I Just thought he was very interesting.

He was different He had different perspectives about things. He was '60s, rock roll and drugs. I had never even heard of that We were people from opposite worlds." When he suggested marriage, she was 'You make stories you read something, you cry or you laugh, and you wanna make it' responds quickly, "of course." Near the end of their year of celebration, Douglas and Nicholson found themselves in Washington, D.C., for Jimmy Carter's inauguration. The two had been invited to the concert at the Kennedy Center on liberal. So, I was taking an anti-nuke attitude because my friends were." Actually, he was once employed by one of the giants of the oil industry.

In 1964, he'd flunked out of the University of California at Santa Barbara after his freshman year, slunk back to Connecticut, where he'd spent most of his teen-age years; and got a job at a gas station. "1 was Mobil Man of the Month. 1 still have my eertificata" Douglas was born into an acting family (his mother is actress Diana Douglas) but after some theater work, a few film roles and the part of a brash and sexy young cop in the hit TV series "Streets of San Francisco," his greatest success and satisfaction have come from producing. "1 can't believe they pay you for it!" he says. "You make stories.

You read something, you cry' or laugh, and you wanna make it" Was it an emotional response, not politics, that got him interested in The China "The script got me excited," he says, "because I saw it could be suspensef ui. It was basically about a documentary film crew filming an accident at a nuclear plant I found this parallel with 'Cuckoo's Nest' individuals caught in a corporate or social structure that forces them to make a moral decision at the sacrifice of losing their lives. It's an effort at what is basically Greek tragedy classic drama situations." Douglas got the script in April 1976, just after "Cuckoo's Nest" had won five Academy Awards. He figured he could pretty much call his own shots. He was wrong.

"It was shockingly difficult getting things going," he says. "I thought I'd proven something after But this realization came to me out of the fog, I think that when you have a hit picture, the people who benefit directly are the stars and the director, hile you, as the producer, have to start from scratch with a new project" Douglas has often had to "prove things." He went to private schools "You know, the flannel slacks, the white shirts, English schoolboy bags" until he was 11, when his mother got a film contract in California and Douglas found himself in a public junior high school, jumped from fifth to seventh grade. "It was a little fast for me. Here I'd been going to this all-boy private school, and then I'm suddenly with these junior-high kids, 13-and 14-year-olds, There were gangs, and the first girl I kissed had her mouth wide open." Douglas fled into the shelter of the Black Fox Military Academy in Los Angeles for the rest of the year, then went back to Westport, Connecticut, where he excelled in sports, became the captain of various teams, then lapsed in his high-school years into nothing. After flunking out of college in 1964, Douglas took off about a year and a half, which included his award-winning performance at the Mobil station.

"After that, I worked with my father and Richard Harris on a film in Norway, and another one in Israel, as an assistant director. I was like a trainee; you just do all the junk work that you can't delegate any lower." Douglas returned to L'C Santa Barbara. Required to declare a major in his junior year, he enrolled in the theater department "I began trying out for shows, and it was fairly painful." He was after all, the son of Kirk Douglas. "It's part of one's life," he explains. "There probably is that first step where it makes it a little easier.

But you never get the credit for being yourself. There's always that resemblance thing, or mannerisms, so it's hard. You wonder when they will finally say, 'Hey, that person can do something on his 3 ft- 7 i tl. 'f 1 Douglas at his 1977 marriage to Diandra Lucker FTER FINISHING school, Douglas went back to i acting ana negin a career. i VI He did several off-Broadway Plays, then moved A nn in tnlpvkinn in a "PRQ Plavh i production.

After signing with CBS' filmmaking larm, Cinema Center, he moved back to Lady Lynne's beguiling new inner art. Sleek, scenic satin remarque lingerie slips smoothly under new close-tothe-body clothes. Pettislip is slim and side-slit 26.00. Softly shaped camisole 17.00. Side-slit chemise 20.00.

Navy nylon-rayon-polyester, P-S-M sizes. Lingerie Salon California and made two pictures, "Adam at 6 A.M." and "Hail, Hero!" For Walt Disney Productions, he starred in "Napoleon and Samantha," theruplayed the lead role in the film version of "Summertree." One of the actresses in that movie was Brenda Vaccaro. Douglas is not much help in figuring out how their relationship began. "It was a gradual process, over two or three months of working with her on the film." He isn't avoiding the subject, and he's not disinterested. "I just don't know how to explain it" he says.

Douglas began doing television acting again. "I'd done an 'FBI' episode for Quinn Martin Productions. I replaced someone at the last minute, and my agency pushed it when Quinn Martin started I was reluctant. I thought I had this image to live up to, and there's a stigma attached to TV. On the other hand, I was telling myself, 'Hey, jerk, wake up.

They're not exactly knocking your door down with movie The series, though, had a price: his relationship with Vaccaro, with whom he lived for five years. From 1972 through 1975 the show required Douglas to live eight months of each year in San Francisco, and Vaccaro neither wanted to live here nor to visit regularly. While he was starring in "Streets," Douglas was putting "Cuckoo's Nest" together, and left the series after his fourth season to wrap up the film. "Cuckoo," the film nobody wanted, went on to win five Oscars, net more than $80 million and make everyone involved including Kirk and Michael Douglas rich. The success of "Cuckoo's Nest" propelled Douglas and Jack Nicholson, the star of the film, into what the producer calls "a year of Celebrating." Douglas had done a six-week globe-trotting promotion tour with Nicholson to Japan, Australia, England, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark.

"Then I went to South America and Mexico and Venezuela and Brazil, quasi-promoting the picture but mixing that with hanging out" Douglas, like a kid reporting to his parents after spending a sordid weekend in Tijuana, Thursday Hours: San Francisco Open Until Oakland, San Mateo, Cirmel Until Walnut Creek, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Vallco Until 9:00.