Michael Douglas has finally confirmed what he denied for more than 40 years, that he and Kathleen Turner had an affair while filming “Romancing the Stone.”
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, the 82-year-old actor says the two “fell hard for each other” during production of the 1984 adventure film and kept the relationship hidden from nearly everyone around them.
Fox News reported that People obtained the passage from Douglas’s book, “One Helluva Ride,” in which he describes attraction, secrecy, and a quiet end once his then-wife arrived on set with their young son.
Douglas and Turner had long brushed aside the rumor. They talked up on-screen chemistry and said they were tempted but never acted on it. The memoir now says the opposite.
Douglas said that he left home for the shoot while “still technically married, but separated.” He says things at home “were in a bad place” and that he and then-wife Diandra Luker “were both having extramarital affairs.”
Of Turner, he recalls: “Kathleen was smart, funny, and sexy with a deep, sultry voice that became her signature.”
He adds, “I instantly liked her, and we were immediately attracted to each other.”
The fuller account is direct. Douglas said that the bond was not casual.
"The truth is that during the production of Romancing the Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship. It wasn’t a fly-by night affair; it grew naturally from how closely we were working together, how much pressure we were under, how much we respected and cared for one another, and how attracted we were to each other. Like every other guy in the world at the time, I was knocked sideways by Kathleen."
He describes dinners after filming and says he “would sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep.” There were “no cameras in elevators, no assistants using cell phones to take pictures,” he notes, a different era of Hollywood privacy.
On screen they played Jack Colton and Joan Wilder. Off screen, he said, “As Jack and Joan were falling in love, Kathleen and I were keeping the chemistry alive.”
Director Bob Zemeckis and co-star Danny DeVito were kept in the dark, according to Douglas’s account.
The affair stopped after Luker visited the production with their son, Cameron. Douglas said that she “made it clear to her [Turner] that we were still married.” He and Turner then decided to end it.
He says they hid the relationship for decades to protect Luker and Cameron. Public denials held through the sequel years and even through a later reunion on “The Kominsky Method.”
Luker filed for divorce in 1995. The split was finalized in 2000 after 23 years of marriage. Douglas says, “After that first split it was never the same between us ever again.”
In November 2000 he married Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple later welcomed son Dylan, now 26, and daughter Carys, now 23.
After the excerpt circulated, Turner gave People a short statement rather than a long defense or denial.
"Good heavens, what a fuss about something 40 years ago! I love Michael, and I look forward to enjoying the book."
She did not separately spell out a detailed confirmation of every claim. She treated the uproar as old news and wished the memoir well.
Douglas’s book is still described as upcoming. The public record so far rests on the People-obtained excerpt and the coverage that followed, including the Fox News account of his admission and Turner’s response.
Hollywood sold the movie as breezy romance. The off-screen version stayed buried until a memoir made candor useful. Marriage vows still mean something, even when the confession arrives four decades late.
