Michael Douglas' son Cameron claims his father hired a busboy to help him have a 'constant male influence' in his life
Michael Douglas once hired a busboy from a restaurant in Beverly Hills to be a "more constant male influence" on his son Cameron. In his memoir that released on October 22, Cameron Douglas shared that his father found the candidate during lunch at the Ivy in Beverly Hills with his mom Diandra Luker.
He writes in his book 'Long Way Home', "Dad said, 'What about this guy? He seems very capable. He could be a houseman or something like that.' Mom spoke to him in Spanish...he was from El Salvador." The deal seemed to go through because the man started living with Cameron and his family. "He took care of me from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep," he writes in the book.
However, he wasn't as constant as Cameron had hoped. He found himself heartbroken when the so-called father figure was sacked from his job after his mother found out he had an alcohol problem. She discovered vodka bottles under his bed and had asked him to stop which he refused to do. Cameron was 10 years old at the time.
Diandra and Michael married in 1977 when he was 32 and she was 19. Diandra filed for divorce in 1995 after she had found him with other women multiples times and had also caught him in bed with one. This even led to the actor checking into rehab to get help for his sex addiction.
In the book, Cameron describes his relationship with his father as one-sided. "I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to be my friend. I revered him," he writes.
Because Michael spent so much of his time and effort on his career, his focus on family took a backseat. "You rack your brain and you take it personally in the beginning, you start blaming yourself," Michael said in an ABC special that aired on October 22. "Then you look at your genetic makeup. I should've changed my priorities. My career was first. My career came before my family," he explained.
He said he hid behind his work since his marriage was on the rocks and regrets it. "I should've focused more on my family, but that's hard to say when you're in the midst of a career, when you are in your own mind, stepping out of your father's shadow, trying to create a life for your own."