Kirk Douglas, figuring 80 movies were enough, had planned to devote his time from now on to his newfound profession of writing. That was before he saw the script for the television movie The Secret. He was completing work on his second novel, The Gift, when he read the script, the story of a man harboring a secret and his relationship with his son and grandson. Douglas liked the story and the first thing he knew he was in Nova Scotia for filming. CBS will televise The Secret on Sunday at 9 p.m., locally on WTVT-Ch. 13. "The Secret really hit me because my mother and father were illiterate immigrants from Russia," Douglas says. "My character in The Secret is hiding that and suffering because of it. I thought my father might have been like that. It's a movie about dyslexia, which is a learning disability. People don't understand it and are ashamed of it." Douglas' character is forced to face his secret when he runs for public office and, at the same time, his grandson develops symptoms of dyslexia. The movie also stars Bruce Boxleitner as his son, Brock Peters as his best friend, Laura Harrington as his daughter-in-law and Jesse R. Tendler as his grandson. Cynthia A. Cherbak wrote the screenplay and Karen Arthur directed. Six months before working on the movie, Douglas escaped death in a helicopter-airplane collision that killed two people. He was injured and had complex feelings about his survival and the two deaths. "I wanted to concentrate on my writing," Douglas says. "Maybe I'd done enough movies. I'd written my autobiography, The Ragman's Son, and my first novel, Dance With the Devil. My second, The Gift, will be out in August or September. I'm now into my third novel." Douglas says the only movie he's looking forward to making is one with his son, Michael Douglas, who won an Academy Award for Wall Street. His other sons, Peter, Eric and Joel, have worked with him in off-camera positions. Douglas was interviewed in the art-filled house he shares with his wife, Anne. He's wearing brown pants and a jacket, a red shirt and red socks. His steel gray hair is combed straight back and his complexion is ruddy. He is in his late 70s, but still has the vigorous look he had in such movies as The Champion, Lust For Life, Cast a Giant Shadow and Spartacus. "Listen, there was a time when I thought I was going to be dead," he says. "I'm living on borrowed time. I had a lot of guilt when I was in the hospital. Two people in the plane were killed." The accident occurred while Douglas was working on The Gift with his editor at her farm near Fillmore, a small town northwest of Los Angeles. A friend called and asked him to accompany him in his helicopter from an airfield nearby. "People ask me about the crash," he says. "I say what crash? I was looking out the window at the beautiful mountains. The next thing I knew I was in a hospital." Douglas' last movie was a brief appearance with Sylvester Stallone before the titles in Oscar. "Looking back on my career," he says, "I never thought of being a leading man or the lover. I was attracted to the role. I've often played SOBs. Virtue can't be photographed. My career started when I played the ruthless tough guy in The Champion. Van Gogh in Lust For Life certainly wasn't a lover boy. I'm drawn to roles that excite me."