Eric Anthony Douglas (June 21, 1958 – July 6, 2004) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Douglas was the youngest son of actor Kirk Douglas and his second wife Anne Buydens. One of his half-siblings was Academy Award-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas.

Douglas pursued a career in show business but did not attain the same level of success as his father and siblings. His career was typically overshadowed by his numerous run-ins with the law and problems with alcohol and drugs. In 2004, he died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 46.

Biography

Legal issues
Douglas was arrested multiple times throughout the 1990s. One of his first arrests came in 1991 for kicking a Beverly Hills police officer. On October 30, 1994, Douglas was arrested in Los Angeles for cocaine possession. Less than a month later, he was arrested for DUI and for leaving the scene of an accident when he crashed into a parked car while trying to leave The Comedy Store in West Hollywood after a fight. In May 1996, Douglas was arrested for possession of a controlled substance when police found eleven vials of crack cocaine and 1,085 Xanax pills in his Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan apartment. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was placed on probation and was ordered to complete a drug rehab program.

In August 1996, he was arrested in Long Beach, California for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Two days later, Douglas was arrested in New Canaan, Connecticut for disorderly conduct after he attempted to kiss a young girl who was a fellow patient at Silver Hill Hospital, a rehab facility he was in at the time. He was cleared of the charges in February 1998. In February 1997, Douglas was arrested for DUI after crashing his rental car into two parked cars.


Drug issues
In 2000, Douglas revealed in an interview that he went into an eight-day coma in 1999 after accidentally overdosing on Xanax. Douglas recalled, "I was in L.A. sitting around my breakfast table with my dad and I choked on a piece of sausage. But because the pills had taken effect, I was not able to dislodge the sausage from my throat." After the Douglas' maid attempted the Heimlich maneuver, Douglas was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he fell into a coma. Due to an anoxic brain injury, his speech became slurred and gait was altered.

In May 2001, Douglas sued his former psychiatrist, Dr. William Leader, claiming that Leader prescribed him a combination of prescription drugs that are lethal when combined with alcohol. Douglas asserted that Leader, who had been treating Douglas for his drug addictions for ten years, failed to consider his alcohol problem when he prescribed Vicodin, Klonopin, and Xanax. Douglas claimed the drugs caused him to feel suicidal and also caused an episode of cardiac arrest which led him to require constant care and hospitalization. Douglas sought $50,000 in damages from Leader.

Weeks before his death, Douglas' was back in a rehab center in upstate New York. His parents reportedly visited him and gave him a tough love ultimatum regarding his drug use. During an appearance on The Early Show in 2009, Kirk Douglas told interviewer Julie Chen that he and his wife had taken Eric to "20 rehab centers" over the years and that "nothing helped".