Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is “furious” that doctors failed to diagnose her Hollywood veteran husband Michael Douglas’s throat cancer earlier, she said in an interview published on Thursday.

But Mr Douglas himself, who this week revealed that his cancer was more advanced than previously thought, vowed to overcome the disease, telling People magazine: “I’ll beat this.”

Mr Douglas, 65, only recently revealed his diagnosis when he returned to the United States from a family holiday. This week he said it was a stage four cancer, but he had an 80 per cent chance of beating it.

But British actress Mrs Zeta-Jones, who married Mr Douglas in 2000, voiced anger that his chances of beating the cancer are reduced because it was diagnosed only three weeks ago.

He had spent months seeking a cause for persistent throat and ear pain before a walnut-sized tumour was discovered on the base of his tongue in early August, the couple said.

“He sought every option and nothing was found. I knew something was up. He knew something was up,” Mrs Zeta-Jones told the US weekly, adding: “It makes me furious they didn’t detect it earlier.”

Mr Douglas was more philosophical about how soon he was diagnosed, saying: “Without having to blame anybody... these things sometimes just don’t show up.”

And he was upbeat about his chances of overcoming it. “I’m treating this as a curable disease,” he said. “It’s a fight. I’ll beat this.”

Mr Douglas is a pillar of Hollywood, having starred in more than 40 films, including such hits as Fatal Attraction (1988), Wall Street (1988), War of the Roses (1990), Basic Instinct (1992) and Traffic (2001).

His latest film, the sequel to the 1987 box office hit Wall Street called The Money Never Sleeps, directed by Oliver Stone, is due to hit movie theatres in the United States later this month.

Mr Douglas has a son from an earlier marriage, Cameron Douglas, who was sentenced in April to five years in prison for drug-trafficking.