Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are technically still separated, but he visits her and his children every day. Douglas is working his way back inside her heart via a most unusual method. He makes pancakes almost every morning for his kids and estranged wife, and she may, in fact, be warming to his kindness.

In addition to showing up for breakfast, Michael Douglas goes back to Catherine Zeta-Jones’s apartment again at night and reads stories to his kids. Do you suppose there’s any bedtime entertainment for Zeta-Jones, too?

Apparently not. Rumor has it, she sends him away each night when he’s done with the kids, to sleep alone in his own home. She does seem to be warming to his efforts, however, but she’s a long way from heated up about them. He, on the other hand, would do absolutely anything to ensure their marriage doesn’t end in divorce.

“Michael would give his right arm for a reconciliation but Catherine’s warned she is not ready to commit and she’s still not ruled out divorce,” a close friend of the actress says.

After the struggle Michael Douglas endured with cancer, he no doubt has a new appreciation for life that sometimes those who haven’t had a brush with death don’t quite understand. Hopefully he hasn’t worked hard to win one battle, only to wind up losing another.

At the very least the After the Candelabra star has elicited some Twitter empathy for his efforts.

"My friends ask me, what does your Daddy so for a living and I say he makes pancakes." – Michael Douglas' daughter. #soprecious #parenting

— Tracy Frank (@tfrnk) November 22, 2011

Do you expect things will work out for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones or do you think he’s flipping his flapjacks in vain?

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