Oscar-winning Hollywood legend Michael Douglas is expected to return to Mallorca for his annual summer holiday within the next few weeks. Douglas, who has owned a luxury seafront estate near Valldemossa for over 30 years will open the 71st edition of the Taormina Film Festival. The American actor and producer, twice an Academy Award winner and a leading figure in Hollywood, will receive the prestigious Taormina Excellence Achievement Award in the setting of the Ancient Theatre on the evening of June 10 in Sicily.
A new copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the 1975 and five Oscar-winning New Hollywood classic comedy-drama produced by Douglas, will also be shown in the fest’s 8,000-seat open-air ancient Greek amphitheatre.
Douglas is expected to be joined in Mallorca by his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, the couple have recently celebrated daughter Carys' graduation from Brown University. Carys graduated with a degree in Film and International Relations, while her older brother Dylan also graduated from Brown in 2022.
Last year, Douglas said in Palma that he is “semi-retired” and intends to spend at least half the year at his home in Valldemossa. Although he is still open to new projects, he is clear that he will only choose those he is passionate about. The actor told the media: “I want to get rid of the extra baggage I have accumulated over the years and enjoy my free time here. I’m going to be in Mallorca for six or seven months. It’s not a formal retirement, but I’m semi-retired,” he said. Such is his attachment to the Balearics that in 2003 he was appointed Mallorca’s cultural ambassador.
Douglas is still open to new projects, both on the big screen and for television, but not just anything, he wants something special that makes him want to work. That’s why he has warned his agents to only call him if the material is good. It was in 2023 that he decided to take a break that has already extended to more than half of 2024, where he spent much of his time on his Mallorca estate which, between 2014 and 2019, he tried to sell.