Michael Douglas has revealed that he had a secret affair with his “Romancing the Stone” co-star Kathleen Turner while filming the 1984 adventure film, more than four decades after the two first worked together.
Douglas, 82, makes the revelation in his forthcoming memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” in which he recalls a relationship that he says developed while the pair were filming in Colombia. According to Douglas, the attraction was immediate, but the relationship initially grew out of a friendship between the two actors.
“We found each other first as friends, then as co-stars, and finally as lovers,” Douglas wrote in the memoir.
Douglas recalled that after long days of filming in the jungle, he and Turner would sometimes have dinner together or spend time with the rest of the cast and crew before he quietly went to her hotel room after everyone else had gone to sleep.
At the time, Douglas was married to his first wife, Diandra Luker. In his account, Douglas said he and Luker had separated and were both involved in relationships outside the marriage. He described his relationship with Turner as a brief affair that was kept away from the other people working on the film.
Douglas said even co-star Danny DeVito and director Robert Zemeckis were unaware of the relationship. He characterized it as a “fly-by-night affair” that remained private while the production continued.
The situation changed when Luker travelled to the set in Mexico with the couple’s son, Cameron. Douglas said his wife became suspicious and eventually spoke privately with Turner about the marriage.
“Diandra grew suspicious,” Douglas wrote. “A woman’s intuition, I suppose.” He said Luker made it clear to Turner that she still considered herself married to Douglas, despite the couple’s separation.
Turner has previously spoken about her attraction to Douglas, although she had not described the relationship as an affair in the same terms. In a 2021 interview with People, she acknowledged that she was attracted to him but knew he was still married.
“I was yearning, babe, but he was still married,” Turner said at the time, describing the sexual tension between them as something that went both ways.
Turner also discussed her conversation with Luker in a 2023 interview with The Guardian. She said she believed she and Douglas might have been falling in love, but Luker’s arrival made clear that she did not regard Douglas as available.
“I think we might have been falling in love,” Turner said. “But then Diandra flew down and made it clear that she did not consider Michael to be available. So that ended that because I can’t get involved with another woman’s relationship.”
Turner did not challenge Douglas’ account when People asked her about the memoir revelation. Instead, she appeared to put the episode in the context of the many years that have passed since the film was made.
“Good heavens what a fuss about something 40 years ago! I love Michael and I look forward to enjoying the book,” she said.
The disclosure adds a previously private chapter to the history of one of Hollywood’s best-known on-screen partnerships. Douglas and Turner reunited for “The Jewel of the Nile” in 1985, the sequel to “Romancing the Stone,” and later appeared together in “The War of the Roses.”
Their professional relationship continued long after the alleged affair ended. Douglas later married actor Catherine Zeta-Jones, while his marriage to Luker ended in divorce in 1995.
For Turner, the story is also consistent with an account she has given in interviews over the years: that there was a strong attraction between the two actors, but that she ultimately stepped back after Luker made her position clear.
Douglas’ memoir is expected to offer his own detailed account of a relationship that, according to his telling, remained outside public knowledge for roughly 40 years.
