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them end up as their stepmother?
    Michael did not like the word, because he had heard about ‘stepmothers and stepsisters’ in
Cinderella
, and he wanted none of them. So Diana’s disquiet over the headlines was not so mucha matter of her own feelings. Her ex-husband could frequently be seen splashed across acres of newsprint with this star or
     that merry widow. Diana wasn’t worried for herself; she was more troubled by the effects of the publicity on Kirk himself
     and on Michael, who was coming up to his ninth birthday. She feared that his growing introspection might become a problem.
     Though his father was often on the other side of the world, his very presence was never far away for one reason or another.
    Kirk’s meeting and subsequent relationship with Anne Buydens, therefore, brought some measure of relief and hope – that at
     last Kirk might settle down after three wild years on the loose and give some order and direction to his sons’ visits.
    The ‘taming of Kirk Douglas’, as the tabloids called it, began while he was in Paris filming
Act of Love
for Anatole Litvak, but was by no means an instant achievement. At the time Kirk was looking for a public relations executive;
     local film people suggested he should get in touch with Mrs Anne Buydens, who had earlier worked with John Huston. She was,
     he was told, a strong-willed and unflappable lady who knew the business.
    Contact was made and Mrs Buydens invited Kirk to a meeting. He was impressed. She was elegant, attractive and greeted him
     in a formal and professional manner in her executive attire of dark suit and white blouse.
    She did not like Kirk Douglas, however; not immediately, anyway. She turned down his offer of work and his invitation for
     dinner. Later she explained that she was fed up with film people and had just spent a harrowing time on the John Huston movie,
     trying to keep a clamouring press and a jealous husband away from the affair Huston was having with one of his leading ladies.‘Thanks, Mr Douglas, for the offer, but no thanks,’ she said.
    Kirk persisted. A couple of weeks later he persuaded Mrs Buydens to come to work for him on a part-time basis. By then, he
     wasn’t too interested in the work she might do for him; he was more intrigued by her personally. Over dinner one night he
     discovered that she was trapped in an unhappy marriage to a man whom she did not love, a man she had married to escape from
     the Germans during the war, and who was well aware that she was deeply involved in an affair with a married man.
    Kirk sat listening to her story open-mouthed. Within a week they had themselves become lovers, in spite of Anne’s declared
     resolution never to get involved with Hollywood again. He had rented a house near the Bois de Boulogne. Anne began to spend
     a good deal of time there, as the filming of
Act of Love
continued. At Easter in 1953 Kirk telephoned Diana in New York to arrange for the boys to fly out to join him for the holidays.
     Initially, she was going to send them with a nurse, but Kirk invited her too; they could all stay with him at the house.
    Diana, Michael and Joel met Anne when they arrived. At that stage there was nothing to suggest the relationship between Kirk
     and Anne might become more permanent. Indeed, while Kirk and Diana were strolling in the park one afternoon with their sons,
     Michael caught hold of his parents’ hands and remarked: ‘Now we are a family again.’

CHAPTER THREE
L ETTERS FROM F ATHER
    S eeing his parents on brief occasions of family togetherness disrupted Michael Douglas. He seemed reluctant to show affection,
     and according to his mother developed a deep sense of reserve. Although he has always dismissed the notion that his parents’
     divorce affected him in any way, there is little doubt that he was shattered by his parents’ split and would cry and plead
     with them to get back together. It remained with him for the rest of his life, as was evident in