THE union of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones has always been one of those noisily vulgar affairs. He has crowed that living with the actress, 25 years his junior, is like fulfilling your every fantasy, and she has been just the same about him. “See that man over there? He’s a movie star and I get to sleep with him every night!” she yelled from the stage at the Tony Awards three years ago.
Another time, when they were celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary at the St Regis Hotel in New York, Catherine teasingly asked her guests of the revels: "Is it too much? We don’t give a ****!"
Her first gift to him after their marriage was reportedly 1,000 blank love cheques. Douglas, a noted Lothario, was invited to fill in any sexual demand, and she would comply.
But now it is over. On Wednesday they announced their 13-year union had disintegrated and that they had made a mutual decision to “take some time apart” and “work on their marriage”.
He has been spending time alone, in the South of France. She is with her mum and two children in upstate New York, in a stunning £3.2 million (about R51.5 million) home.
Douglas, 68, is said to have given up on the union some time ago and has already consulted lawyers, though neither he nor Catherine, 43, is said to be filing for a divorce at this stage.
The couple, who married in November 2000, have not been seen together in public since April 22, when they appeared arm-in-arm on the red carpet at the 40th Annual Chaplin Award Gala in New York.
They are said to have made the decision to split in May after Douglas returned from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where he was promoting his latest film, Behind The Candelabra, but chose to make the official announcement on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Zeta-Jones said: "Catherine and Michael are taking some time apart to evaluate and work on their marriage. There will be no further comment."
The marriage has been devastated by a series of crises. First, Douglas’s son Cameron was jailed for five years for dealing cocaine and methamphetamine in 2010. Then the actor was diagnosed with stage four throat cancer, which he claimed was brought on by a combination of stress, heavy drinking, smoking and even oral sex.
He underwent six months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before being given the all clear in January 2011. Catherine struggled to support him during the treatment, and was apparently drinking and smoking heavily.
Soon afterwards, she checked herself into a £775-a-night psychiatric hospital in Connecticut suffering from bipolar II disorder, in which serial periods of depression are followed by manic highs. The condition is said to have been brought on by the strain of dealing with her husband’s illness.
Earlier this year, she spent a second spell in the clinic to receive further treatment for her condition.
In recent months, they have drifted increasingly apart. It was claimed in February that Douglas had moved out and gone to live nearby while they considered their future.
He was also said to have moved out for a time last summer, but returned because of concerns for her health.
There have been reports of vicious arguments. He is said to have accused her of "giving up" on Cameron, his son from his first marriage, who he regularly visits in prison in Pennsylvania, taking their two children Carys, ten, and Dylan, 13, with him. But Catherine has never been seen there.
Jen Paul, the editor of the Bohomoth celebrity gossip website, who has an inside track on the marriage, said: ‘This has been a perfect storm of stress, guilt and incredible heartache.
"They decided last year to give living apart a go, while co-parenting the kids, but now they barely see each other. Rather than help them decide what was wrong and what needed fixing, it made it clear to them both that they were so much happier and calmer apart.
"They have tried counselling but the truth of the matter is they’ve fallen out of love and are both completely different people now from how they were when they got married."
Douglas has been living in their huge apartment in Manhattan while Catherine has been at their upstate home with Dylan and Carys. Her mother, Pat, has moved in with them. The story is that he has been visiting at the weekends. It is he, not Catherine, who wants to call time on the marriage.
He had hoped to wait until after the Emmy awards on September 22 – where he is the favourite to be named Outstanding Actor for his role as Liberace in Behind The Candelabra – but the speculation had become too widespread to be ignored.
A source said last week: "The marriage is effectively over. Catherine is fighting to save the marriage but he’s had it. Michael has been through so much in the past few years he feels that life is too short for all this misery."
Another says: "Reconciliation is not on his radar any more."
Perhaps Douglas’s experience with his first wife, Diandra, to whom he was married from 1976 to 2000, has come to bear. He said in an interview this month that he regrets not having pulled the plug on that union sooner. He was openly dating other women for the last ten years of it.
One New York friend of Catherine’s tells me that Douglas, who has had problems with alcohol in the past, has become a "dry drunk" – someone who no longer abuses alcohol but is prone to rages.
Someone who spent time with the couple recently said that the 25-year age gap has been a factor: "Michael has gotten to be a mean old man. He finds fault in her all the time, it is an ugly atmosphere. He is grouchy and hard to live with. They have been arguing for years." It would not be surprising if recent crises had taken their toll on Douglas. He was devastated by Cameron’s imprisonment, which was rapidly followed by his cancer diagnosis and gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
As he was recovering, Catherine checked herself into the Silver Hill Hospital for five days with a mild version of bipolar disorder. The facility –where Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli and Mariah Carey have been treated – costs £775 a night and has four-poster beds and maid service.
Some experts commented that a five-day stay in a world-famous rehab clinic was a curious way to treat a long-term depressive condition. She was back at Silver Hill in April this year, just a few weeks after she and Douglas took a make-or-break holiday at a five-star resort in Georgia which appeared only to confirm that they were happier apart.
By the end of July, Star magazine was asserting that the union was broken beyond repair.
Aside from the coincidence of sharing a birthday, they were divided by everything apart from gloss and ambition. He first laid eyes on her on screen, in The Mask Of Zorro, and was enraptured. He engineered a meeting at the Deauville Festival in France in 1998, telling her he wanted her to have his children.
When they married, Douglas was very much the big star from a Hollywood dynasty, with a fortune of £110 million and worldwide fame thanks to movies such as Basic Instinct and Wall Street. She was the girl from Swansea who had slogged from the chorus line of 42nd Street through The Darling Buds Of May on TV, and was just making it as a Hollywood name.
After Catherine won an Oscar for Chicago in 2003 and had daughter Carys shortly afterwards, Douglas took a career break, saying that he was happy to stay home and make pancakes with the kids. He reasoned that Catherine was "in the prime of her career."
They set up home in Bermuda, but Catherine apparently found it incredibly boring. And when she had to work, it led to separations.
While Douglas stayed at home she enjoyed boozy outings with Brad Pitt and George Clooney on the set of Ocean’s Twelve. In 2007 there was a very public flirtation with another co-star, Aaron Eckhart. The two held hands on the red carpet, and Douglas was apparently "furious". Catherine was said to be exasperated by the suggestion there was anything between her and Eckhart other than a spot of luvvie bonding.
One source said at the time that they could "barely stand being together. Whenever they are in the same room, it usually turns into a blazing row." Douglas fuelled the gossip by joking in an interview that he planned to cast his wife in a movie and play the villain, killing either her or her "young leading man".
The following year he said that he and Miss Zeta-Jones were no longer sleeping together. Just a joke presumably?
None of the films she made in this period was successful. They returned to New York in 2009 in a bid to restart her career, with a run on Broadway.
However, while she has failed to chalk up a recent hit, his career is enjoying a golden period. Behind The Candelabra is hailed by many as his best work in years.
In contrast, Catherine’s stage performance at this year’s Oscars as Velma Kelly from Chicago – reprising her Oscar role – smacked to many of "look at me" desperation.
A few weeks after the ceremony, she was back at Silver Hill clinic.
So what now? Although talk of a divorce is officially said to be premature, we can expect a blockbuster for the lawyers. The couple have a combined fortune of £185 million and Catherine has a pre-nuptial agreement which gives her £960 000 for every year of marriage. She will also be advised to hang on to several of their eight homes.
Douglas has sounded distinctly valedictory in recent interviews when it comes to the marriage. He said this summer: ‘We’re happy. I never thought I’d get this chance to have a second family, this joy.
"Catherine isn’t just a beautiful woman. She has balance, she understands this business. I’m very grateful I met her. I was married once for 18 years but this time around it has been great. It really has."
Note the past tense. He added: "Happiness is moments. I don’t think anyone walks around happy all the time unless they’re completely medicated. Happiness is cherishing good moments and trying to link together more good moments than bad."
What a pity that, after 13 years, the bad moments in his marriage to Catherine seem to have won out. - Daily Mail