Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.
The elder son of Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill, Douglas received his Bachelor of Arts in Drama from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His early acting roles included film, stage, and television productions. Douglas first achieved prominence for his performance in the ABC police procedural television series The Streets of San Francisco, for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations.
Matthew Modine on His Role in ‘Oppenheimer’ and Producing Nuclear Testing Doc ‘Downwind’: ‘This Insanity Hasn’t Stopped’
variety.comAddie Morfoot Contributor In “Downwind,” a documentary executive produced by Matthew Modine, directors Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller chronicle the lethal effects that nuclear testing on American soil has had on U.S.
citizens. The Oscar hopeful reveals that from 1951 to 1992, Mercury, Nevada, was the site for the testing of 928 large scale nuclear weapons.
Wind dispersed radioactive fallout from those atmospheric blasts (mushroom clouds) and underground testing (venting) in a seemingly unpredictable manner to people living “downwind.” The United States Department of Justice defines “downwinders,” also known as lab rats, as human beings who live in counties located downwind from Nevada Test Site in the states of Utah, Nevada and Arizona.
The film explains that the radiation led to various diseases, mainly cancer. Shapiro and Miller also highlight how Hollywood star John Wayne and numerous members of the cast and crew of the 1956 movie “The Conqueror” died, arguably, of cancer due to filming in Nevada close to the atomic testing sites.
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