Michael Douglas says he and Kathleen Turner had an affair while filming “Romancing the Stone” in the early 1980s, contradicting a story the two actors repeated publicly for roughly 40 years.
The admission appears in an excerpt from Douglas’s upcoming memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” shared by People on Friday. The 82-year-old actor, who turns 83 this fall, writes that he and Turner “found each other first as friends, then as co-stars and finally as lovers,” and that he would “sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep” following days of shooting in the jungle.
At the time, Douglas was married to Diandra Luker, with whom he shares son Cameron. He writes that the couple were separated during filming and “both having extramarital affairs.” The relationship with Turner ended when Luker and Cameron visited the set and Luker confronted Turner directly. According to Douglas, the conversation “gave Kathleen pause” because “she didn’t want to interfere,” and the two actors ended the affair.
“I went back to Diandra,” Douglas writes. “I did it for Cameron, but we shouldn’t have gotten back together. After that first split, it was never the same between us ever again.” Douglas and Luker divorced in 2000. He later married Catherine Zeta-Jones, with whom he shares son Dylan, 26, and daughter Carys, 23.
Douglas says he and Turner then built a cover story to protect Luker and Cameron, one Turner stuck to for decades in interviews. “Yes, we confessed, we had amazing chemistry,” he writes. “Yes, we were both, as Kathleen said, ‘terrible flirts,’ and yes, we were both tempted, but nothing ever happened between us. That was a lie.”
Decades of Denials
Turner, now 72, repeated versions of that denial across numerous interviews. On “Larry King Live” in 2008, asked whether she and Douglas had a relationship outside of work, she said: “Well, let me — only a good friendship,” adding she had become “rather attracted” to him during filming, but that his wife’s arrival “put an end to that.” “We just became extremely good friends,” she said.
In 2018, on “Good Morning America,” Turner said: “I wanted to. I thought we were falling madly in love…” She said nothing happened because Luker arrived in Mexico and made clear she and Douglas were still married. That same year, on a British chat show, Turner said she felt “rather romantic towards Michael” but that it ended once Luker arrived. “So that was that. You don’t mess with other women’s marriages,” she said.
In 2021, Turner told the Los Angeles Times: “Heavens, I certainly had a crush on Michael during ‘Romancing.'” She said Douglas had told her he was separated, so “it seemed as though … we could have a relationship,” but said Luker’s arrival “killed that.” She added she had been “knocked out by him for a while.”
That same year, in an interview with People, Turner again insisted nothing had happened. “Oh, I was yearning, babe, but he was still married…” she said, describing their chemistry as “wonderful sexual tension.”
In 2023, asked how close she and Douglas really got, Turner declined to answer directly. “None of your business,” she said.
A Long Collaboration
Turner married Jay Weiss in 1984; they divorced in 2007 and share daughter Rachel, 38. Douglas and Turner went on to work together repeatedly after “Romancing the Stone,” appearing in 1985’s “The Jewel of the Nile,” 1989’s “The War of the Roses,” and decades later in Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method.”
