Michael Douglas says: 'The tumor is gone'

Michael Douglas says he has beaten his throat cancer.

In an interview with Matt Lauer, previewing Tuesday morning on NBC's "Today" and running in its entirety Jan. 23 on "Dateline NBC," the Oscar-winning film star and producer says, "I feel good, relieved. The tumor is gone."

He noted, "I'll probably take a couple of months of getting checked out," and so "there's not a total euphoria." But, "I think the odds are, with the tumor gone and what I know about this particular type of cancer, that I've got it beat."

He said his father, screen legend Kirk Douglas, 94, was so concerned about photographs showing a gaunt Michael's 32-pound weight loss that "he came back to New York . . . for 10 days and came up to the apartment every day to see me because, I think, [of] some of these photographs and, you know, who knows if they're touched up."

He is eating, he said, laughing, "like a pig! . . . I've put about 12 [pounds] back [on]. But, I mean, I've got another 20, 25 to go." He has returned to the gym to work out, he said, although his doctors "want to keep the cardio down because they want me to put some more weight on. I lost a lot of muscle mass, so I'm going to work on that."

Lauer noted that, "It sounds cliche but . . . I don't know anybody who's been through cancer who hasn't said that it's changed them." Douglas, 66, responded, "It's put a timeline on my life. . . . It's definitely a third act. And so you're a little more conscious of your time, in how you choose to spend it."