Free Michael Douglas: Acting on Instinct by Michael Douglas, John Parker

told, major parts for a man of his build would never be in abundance.
    As their friendship developed, DeVito’s own ambitions for the theatre and film became an early influence on young Douglas,
     helping to crystallise his own thoughts on a future path. Danny arrived at Waterford to perform in a play written by a tutor
     from the academy which had been selected for a summer showcase of work by new playwrights. The O’Neill Center was housed in
     a former mansion set in twenty acres of grounds. The barns and garages became sleeping quarters, and local people provided
     additional accommodation in their own homes. The Playwrights’ Conference was founded the previous year out of locally raised
     funding, and authors came from all over America to have their work presented and discussed.
    Danny DeVito found himself assigned to the same barn/ dormitory as Michael Douglas. They struck up a rapport straight away,
     but not through some intense discussion about the meaning of Chekhov. ‘Oh, sure, I arrived there expecting to meet a load
     of actors sitting around bullshitting, and there were plenty of them,’ DeVito says in remembrance of that first meeting. ‘But
     then there’s Michael Douglas and a bunch of guys shifting wheelbarrows full of dirt and concrete and sawingtimber. Being from Jersey, I know about that stuff. So I came outside and that’s how we met.’
    The friendship was instant and they became a common, if not slightly comical, sight, dashing around on Michael’s motor cycle,
     their long hair flowing in the wind. They were both considered hippies among the Waterford summertime gathering of more intense
     theatrical types. They liked to get high on headier stuff than beer. They were also both drawn by what Douglas described as
     ‘a sense of admittedly attenuated immigrant roots’. It was a bonding that went back generations to the togetherness of Italians
     and Jews in neighbourhood struggles.
    When the holiday stint at Waterford ended, DeVito went back to New York to struggle on and Michael returned to Santa Barbara
     with a touch more determination than he had possessed at the start of the summer. Off the campus, life continued in the Mountain
     Drive colony, which DeVito himself was soon to experience.
    A few weeks after their meeting, he arrived in Los Angeles in desperate hope of winning a role in the 1967 film version of
     Truman Capote’s faction novel
In Cold Blood
. Armed with a letter of introduction to director Richard Brooks, Danny landed at Los Angeles airport and telephoned Michael
     to apprise him of his mission.
    DeVito suggested that Michael should immediately cut class and jump on his motor cycle and ride like hell down the Pacific
     Coast Highway to meet him. Michael thought DeVito would be better advised to catch a bus, which he did, and the three-and-a-half-hour
     journey to Santa Barbara remains a jokingly sore point between them.
    Danny was a sight to behold. The tiny figure turned up at the commune in a floor-length coat and white sneakers, looking more
     like the psychotic killer he was hopeful of playing in Hollywood. Danny didn’t get the part, but would never forget his introduction
     to life in the offbeat hippie commune, where the naked and nubile lounged around their swamp blowing grass in the hot Californian
     sunshine – which even for a New Yorker was an uncommon experience.
    Michael’s own involvement with the commune continued for some months. Eventually, as he became more taken by the serious prospect
     of becoming an actor, he began to drift away from his laid-back companions. He began to tire of the life when the drugs, the
     change of scenery in bed and dashing around on his motor cycle became the norm rather than the adventure.
    The novelty of nudity and dropping acid began to wear thin. ‘I reckon the ideal of the commune sort of petered out as a natural
     cycle,’ Michael recalled. ‘Eventually, you just got sick of lying around cramming drugs down your