Despite his background—or perhaps because of it—Douglas has remained steadfastly non-Hollywood. He resided in Santa Barbara, 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, for years before moving to Bermuda, where his mother was born.

Though Douglas made his starring film debut 40 years ago in the now-forgotten drama Hail, Hero!, he really didn’t hit his stride as a feature actor until his turn as a dashing adventurer in Romancing the Stone. “When you have such an icon for your father, it takes you time to find your own identity, to feel comfortable in your own skin,” he said. When he did start to play darker characters in 1987, Douglas hit his stride—as the slick tycoon Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, as the happily married man who strays with deadly consequences in Fatal Attraction, as an average guy pushed over the edge by urban woes in Falling Down and as the cop who has an affair with a murderous Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

He won an Oscar for 1987’s Wall Street and bared more than his soul in controversial thrillers like 1987’s Fatal Attraction and 1992’s Basic Instinct. He co-starred in everything from political dramas (The China Syndrome with Jane Fonda) to action comedy (Romancing the Stone with Kathleen Turner).