TORONTO -- This is some of what I learned during a mob scene yesterday. When a room is hot and crowded, even beautiful movie stars like Catherine Zeta Jones, um, perspire; people will line up for more than five hours for a chance to see a real movie star; Kirk Douglas is shorter than you think and that son of his is a darn good boy.

Oh, and note to self. Never again wear a turtleneck to a movie star book signing.

Kirk Douglas was at Indigo Books yesterday to promote his eighth book, A Stroke of Luck. That the memoir is slim and rather rife with cliched self-help advice seemed not to matter. It's not often one gets to see a true Hollywood legend up close -- and when he's accompanied by his superstar son and gorgeous movie star wife, hey, it's a triple bill.

By the time the Douglases were scheduled to appear at 3 p.m., the Bloor St. store was overflowing with hundreds upon hundreds of anxious fans lined up out the doors, a bevy of harried staff were looking overwhelmed and beefy security guards were unsuccessfully trying to clear a path for their entrance.

'WHAT A WELCOME'

"What a Canadian welcome!" a tanned Michael Douglas said to great cheers from the sweltering crowd once his famous family made it to the dias. "I want to thank you so much for coming on behalf of the old man."

Toronto, he said, has become "a second home" -- with his filming a movie in town this past year and Zeta Jones currently shooting Chicago here. Now, we all like flattery about the hometown, but he really had us once he began to introduce his dad. "I'm so proud of the old man," he said, his voice suddenly breaking and the tears welling up. "I said I wouldn't do it," he chastised himself as he wiped his eyes. "This guy had a pretty serious helicopter crash a couple of years ago in which two people were killed, and a few years later he had a stroke -- and here he is with his seventh novel -- no eighth ... Dad, I'm so happy you're up here in Toronto."

Note to cynical editor: Yes, I know the man acts for a living, but those tears sure looked real to me.

Michael Douglas then turned the introduction over to his "stunning" better half who promptly blamed his emotional introduction for ruining her eye makeup. That the lights were blazing probably didn't help either, which Zeta Jones promptly dealt with by shedding her dark blazer to reveal a low-cut sleeveless sweater and tight leather pants.

Note to dad: Sorry, I did not get her autograph. Note to hubby: Never ever ask your wife to get you a personalized photo from a fetching movie star. But we digress, as we say in columnist-speak.

"He really is an inspiration and I'm lucky enough to be able to pick up the phone at any time of the day and be inspired by him," the Welsh beauty said as she introduced her father-in-law with a hug. And then it was his turn.

"I just came from New York where I had a book signing," a moved Kirk Douglas told the screaming crowd that wound up the escalator and ran eight deep into the hall. "It was nothing like this, let me tell you."

Fragile and still hesitant from his 1996 stroke, the 85-year-old looked every inch the Biblical patriarch with his long mane of white hair and famously chiselled features. That Moses is a role model is only coincidence. "No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse," Douglas has said. "So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right."

Yesterday, they hung on his every word -- even when it was sometimes difficult to make them out.

"I remember when I wrote in the book and I could hardly talk, my son Michael and I were talking about doing the picture. And he says to me, 'Dad, don't worry, just work with your speech therapist and then we'll do the movie.' I said: 'Michael -- you work with my speech therapist. And when you talk like I talk, we'll do the movie.'"

That movie is now slated to begin shooting here later this year. It will be the 84th film for Douglas, who was born Issur Danielovitch on Dec. 9, 1916. Through his vast film career, he has honed his image as the chisel-faced tough guy. He brought that strength of character into real life as well, standing up to the pressures of the McCarthy era and helping to break the power of the despicable Hollywood blacklist.

Nominated three times by the academy for best actor, he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1996, just months after suffering his stroke.

In his book, he recalls being terrified about making an acceptance speech -- it would be his first public words since the attack. He begged his son Michael to take his place. "'No way,' my son answered emphatically. 'You will go up on that stage if you have to crawl.' And he walked away."

'YOU CAN'T LET THEM'

He credits that kind of tough love from his family as key to his recovery and he advises others to beware of those bearing too much sympathy. "Next thing you know, they'll be feeding you and treating you like a simpering idiot. You can't let them."

Self-pity was struggle enough. At one point, Douglas says he was so depressed by his "grotesque" drooping face and his inability to speak that he contemplated suicide.

"I walked over to the desk," he writes in his book. "In the lower drawer is the gun I used in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a film I made with Burt Lancaster ...

"I stuck the long barrel of the gun in my mouth and bumped it against my teeth. 'Ow!' It sent shivers through my teeth, and I pulled the gun out. I began to laugh. A toothache delayed my death. I laughed hysterically. I felt like I was playing a part in a movie."

He wrote the book, he says, as an "operator's manual" to help others overcome adversity and battle back. "I call it My Stroke of Luck because my stroke brought me luck," Douglas said yesterday, dapper in his black leather blazer and runners. "It brought me an understanding I have never had before. It taught me a lot of things."

He then sat down, and for an hour -- without complaint, without a sip of water, without once losing his grace or dignity -- the old-time movie star patiently signed hundreds and hundreds of books thrust before him.

Second note to self: Just try not to regret that you didn't ask him to sign your book, too.


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