Douglas cancels Hong Kong speech due to cancer battle

Actor Michael Douglas has cancelled plans to speak at an investor forum in Hong Kong next month, organisers said yesterday, as the Hollywood star battles throat cancer.

“It has been confirmed that he cancelled his trip to Hong Kong and will not be speaking at our investor forum,” a mouthpiece for Asian brokerage CLSA told AFP.

Mr Douglas, a son of screen legend Kirk Douglas, was set to receive eight weeks of radiation and chemotherapy treatment, his spokesman told People magazine online on Monday.

His doctors expect Mr Douglas to make a full recovery, he added.

Famed for his role as corp-orate raider Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street, Mr Douglas was scheduled to talk on topics including “filmmaking, nuclear abolition and the prevention of small arms proliferation” at the annual Hong Kong forum.

The forum draws chief executives, fund managers and other financial big-hitters from around the world and CLSA said it has yet to decide who would take the actor’s place.

Controversial former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin spoke last year on terrorism, US economic policy and China. Other past speakers have included former US president Bill Clinton, ex-Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.