Douglas, Zeta-Jones Begin Happily Ever After

By Ellen A. Kim, Hollywood.com Staff

HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 3, 2000 -- The ring is about the size and shape of a peanut M&M, and when Catherine Zeta-Jones waves her right hand around as she talks, the eyes are confused about which to focus on: the starlet or the 10 carats? "My right bicep is just so overpumped," the 31-year-old newlywed jokes. "Just from having my engagement ring on this hand. I had it on my [left] hand for many months, so I'm starting to even out right now."

On her left hand is the Welsh gold band she received from Michael Douglas when the two married Nov. 18 in a lavish, $1.5 million to $2 million New York ceremony attended by 250, including Anthony Hopkins, Martha Stewart and Jack Nicholson. Now back from her honeymoon and seeing the coverage splayed across the magazine racks, Zeta-Jones admits that she expected some hoopla, but none to the degree she witnessed that Saturday.

"It was a surreal moment when I was having my girly day the day of my wedding, having manicures and pedicures and ordering food up," she recalls. "And my girlfriend said, 'Oh my God, there's hundreds of people outside waving Welsh flags!' And I'm in my curlers and peeping through the window, going 'Oh my God, tell them I'm not coming out, and it's freezing out there.'"

Indeed, despite sending invitations that didn't disclose the exact location, details were leaked to the public by a florist disgruntled at not being hired. But Douglas, 56, says they were still satisfied with their wedding site choice.

"New York obviously is kind of equi-distant between Los Angeles and Wales, so it seemed like a good choice," he says. "One always dreams of those outside weddings on a bluff, but the history nightmares of helicopters going overhead ..."

So even with crowds huddled outside the Plaza Hotel, Zeta-Jones and Douglas managed to keep wedding crashers -- and cameras -- at bay. How did they do it? By making a deal allowing just one magazine from each country rights to their wedding pictures.

"We're happy with it. A little disappointed in the competing magazine being poor losers and trying to stick a hidden camera in there, but so be it," says Douglas, 56. "The idea of trying to get good photographs that could be distributed out where everyone looks great rather than all these long-lensed blurry kind of things seemed to be for us the easiest way to relieve the pressure."

More importantly, it kept invasive efforts to a minimum because selling official photos themselves drastically lowered the market price, giving paparazzi less reason to stalk them -- a lesson first learned when their son, Dylan, was born Aug. 8. Soon after his birth, the couple decided to take official photos and make a deal with magazines so that they wouldn't be hiding outside their apartment, waiting for Zeta-Jones to take him to the doctor.

"[You know] the little baby monitors in your house, right? We can't have them because people outside are tuning into your frequency, trying to listen to your conversations," Douglas says incredulously. "When you have that kind of insanity going on, we thought, 'All right, we'll take some nice pictures with our kid, and then that will stop. There will be no market for these guys to sell photographs.'"

The two actors, in town to promote the Steven Soderbergh drug picture "Traffic," met at the Deauville Film Festival in France in 1998. Zeta-Jones had just wowed audiences in "The Mask of Zorro" opposite Antonio Banderas and Hopkins, and Douglas was promoting the thriller "A Perfect Murder." He convinced her to have dinner, and a year and a half later they were engaged. Zeta-Jones says she was at first nervous about meeting Douglas' father, Kirk, but found his family "down to earth" and actually similar to her own.

"A lot has been made on the difference in financial backgrounds of me and Michael, but he is the ragman's son, Kirk [is]. And he is first-generation Russian in the States, and he did really well. So he hasn't lost his roots in any way, so his family and my family have a lot in common," says Zeta-Jones, whose father is a retired candy salesman and mother is a homemaker. "Kirk is very proud of his son. Being the 'son of' somebody so famous, he's really carved his own niche in life and been successful on both sides of the camera, producing and in acting."

Says Douglas of his wife: "Se's just well grounded. She left at 15 to start working and I think the success she had ... and all the press hoopla and everything -- she's an old soul in a lot of ways. She understands all of the stuff and is not fazed by it."

While the couple shares no scenes in "Traffic," a film collaboration is always a possibility. For now, the two work on separate projects, and in Douglas' case, enjoy parenthood the second time around (Son Cameron, by his first marriage to Diandra Douglas, is now 21.).

"Twenty-two years ago, 1978, my acting career was not nearly established. So it was a time where you enjoy the birth of your first son, your first child, but you're still thinking, your mind's whirling about your own career," Douglas says. "So at this age, to have accomplished what I have, there's not that urgency anymore ... I can focus unequivocally on him and enjoy that moment in time without worrying about my career."

And it certainly helps that 3-month-old Dylan is a perfect angel -- so far.

"I'm embarrassed to say it, but our boy sleeps through the night. He goes to bed at 8 and gets up at 6:30," Douglas says proudly. "He's just a doll that way. Diaper changing is not a problem."

He pauses. "We're not into solids yet."