Tony Earnshaw: Douglas preparing himself for the performance of his life

It wasn't that he looked older, frailer, thinner. It wasn't the bravado of the man although, God knows, he's got more courage than me. And

it wasn't the forced smile or casual charm. What shocked me were his eyes. His eyes revealed what he is going through.

It takes guts to stand up in front of millions of strangers and announce that you've been diagnosed with an aggressively malignant tumour.

Douglas, 66, did it for a number of reasons. Certainly, he'll have done it to show his fans that he's still walking and talking, still able to make light of the horrendous situation in which he finds himself.

He'll have done it to show other cancer sufferers that they, like him, should fight on. And he'll have done it for himself – for the sheer psychological charge of being able to say, "I'm going you beat you".

Douglas, who has claimed he is optimistic of beating the tumour and has been given an 80 per cent chance of survival following radiation and chemotherapy, has been warned he may lose his voice. What a blow, for him or any actor for whom their voice is but one gizmo in their showbiz toolkit.

The star has enjoyed an enviable career, winning

two Oscars. He shot to fame in the 1970s on TV, partnering Karl Malden's veteran cop in The Streets of San Francisco.

He landed his first Academy Award in 1976 for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Then, after early acting parts in Coma, The China Syndrome and The Star Chamber, he hit his stride in the 1980s

and 1990s.

It was a glorious period with hit after hit: Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, Fatal Attraction, Black Rain, Basic Instinct, Falling Down, Disclosure, The Game, Traffic, and Wonder Boys. Wall Street bagged him a second Oscar, as best actor, in 1988, for playing rapacious Gordon Gekko.

It proved that Michael Douglas had managed what many predicted he would never do – step out from his father Kirk Douglas's awesome shadow and be his own man.

And as thrice-nominated Kirk once observed: "Michael won the Oscar. I never did."

Douglas was preparing to endure a global PR campaign for Oliver Stone's sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, when he received his prognosis. There is talk that he hoped his performance would garner him a third Oscar.

Now he's facing an uphill battle to save his voice, his health and his life. His appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on the last day of August, proved one thing – he can still act the socks off many of his contemporaries.

And that steely performance may yet be judged as the best of his life.