Michael Douglas Says He Hid Kathleen Turner Affair for 40 Years

Michael Douglas writes in his new memoir that the chemistry he and Kathleen Turner had in "Romancing the Stone" was real, that it turned into a romance during filming of the 1984 movie, and that the two of them denied it to the world for the next four decades.

"That was a lie," Douglas writes in "One Helluva Ride," in excerpts published by People. "It was a lie meant to protect my wife and son, a lie we told the world for 40 years."

The book, 352 pages from Grand Central Publishing, is out Oct. 6.

The answer they gave reporters for 40 years

Douglas spells out the script both actors stuck to whenever anyone asked. "The official story went as follows: Yes, we confessed, we had amazing chemistry. Yes, we were both, as Kathleen said, 'terrible flirts,' and yes, we were both tempted, but nothing ever happened between us," he writes in the memoir excerpt. It was a tidy answer, it survived four decades of interviews, and he now says it was false.

Douglas was separated from his then-wife, Diandra, while the movie was being made. He and Turner fell for each other during production.

Danny DeVito and Robert Zemeckis had no idea

By Douglas's account, he would sneak into Turner's hotel room after hours. Co-star Danny DeVito did not know. Neither did director Robert Zemeckis, who was shooting one of the biggest hits of his early career with two leads keeping a secret from him.

That is the part of the new book that reframes a movie people have watched on cable a hundred times. The sparks between Jack Colton and Joan Wilder were not acting choices.

Diandra flew to Mexico with their son

The secret started to come apart when Diandra visited Douglas in Mexico, bringing their young son, Cameron. During the trip she was alone with Turner and made clear to her that she and Douglas were still married, Douglas writes.

Douglas writes that the visit gave Turner pause and that she did not want to interfere. "After that visit, Kathleen and I ended things, and I went back to Diandra," he recalls in the excerpted pages.

He says the reconciliation was a mistake

Douglas went back to his marriage for his son, and he does not pretend it worked. "I did it for Cameron, but we shouldn't have gotten back together," he writes. "After that first split it was never the same between us ever again."

Douglas and Diandra separated in 1995 and divorced in 2000. Douglas has been married to Catherine Zeta-Jones since 2000, and they have two children. The book's description says he saw her on a movie screen and instantly fell for her, and that the marriage has lasted twenty-five years.

Turner did not want to make the sequel

"Romancing the Stone" was a hit, which meant a sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile." Turner had no interest in doing it. Fox sued her for $25 million for breach of contract; the suit went away, she made the film, and rewriting the script together repaired the friendship.

They kept going back to the well after that. Douglas and Turner made "The War of the Roses" in 1989 and worked together again on the TV series "The Kominsky Method" in 2021, a stretch of nearly four decades of collaboration with the same unspoken thing sitting underneath it. "The War of the Roses" is among the twelve movies Douglas uses as the spine of the book, along with "Romancing the Stone," "The Jewel of the Nile," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The China Syndrome," "Fatal Attraction," "Wall Street," "Basic Instinct," "Falling Down," "The American President," "Traffic" and "Behind the Candelabra."

He says he phoned every woman in the book first

Douglas handles the question of permission on the first few pages. "There will be some intimate relationships revealed here for the first time. I called each woman involved and received their permission to share our story," he writes in the introduction, which TheWrap quoted ahead of publication.

The same introduction sets expectations plainly: "Life is messy and therefore so are some parts of this book. Much of what you're about to read, I've never told anyone before."

The book was cleared minutes before deadline

"One Helluva Ride" nearly missed its own publication date, TheWrap reported, citing insiders with knowledge of the situation. The contents required a long and in-depth legal vetting in both the United States and England. Last-minute editing was needed after the manuscript shared private conversations between Douglas and celebrities, leading ladies, political figures, movie stars, rock stars and other cultural figures.

Eighty never-before-seen photos, many from Douglas's personal collection, were added at the last minute. The book was finally cleared and approved for publication just minutes before deadline. Grand Central Publishing chose not to comment on the changes.

"We knew Michael's book was going to go far and push boundaries," one insider said in that account. "But we didn't expect it to go as far as it did, and to have that level of detail about his personal life and receipts for the most unbelievably wild and hilarious stories."

A multimillion-dollar advance and 25 countries

A missed deadline would have been a disaster for the publisher, which had already paid Douglas a multimillion-dollar advance and sold foreign rights in 25 countries. An extensive media tour was plotted around the Oct. 6 date, including interviews with the New York Times, the Associated Press and NPR, plus appearances on shows hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher and Joe Rogan, and on "The View."

Douglas had been chased by every major publisher for decades before he signed with Grand Central for what the company billed as the unfiltered story of his life. "Michael was always on my dream list," one publisher was quoted as saying by TheWrap.

What else is in the 352 pages

The Turner story is one chapter of a book that starts with a fractured, bi-coastal childhood and a complicated relationship with his father, Kirk Douglas. It covers his first marriage, infidelity and affairs, his struggle with alcohol and drugs and rehab, the fight to save his son from an addiction that sent him to prison for years, and his battle with stage IV cancer, which hit as he was starting a new family with Zeta-Jones.

The career arc is the other half. He was written off as the handsome son of a movie star, then won an Oscar at 31 for producing "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Told he would never be more than a TV actor, he quit "The Streets of San Francisco" and later won a second Oscar for playing Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street." His turn as Liberace in Steven Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra" brought him an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG award. "I can't think about my life without thinking of my movies," Douglas says in the book's own copy.

Where to hear him talk about it

Douglas appears at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. ET, in conversation with Kelly Corrigan, who has written four New York Times bestselling memoirs and two children's books and hosts the PBS show "Tell Me More." Doors open at 6 p.m. A ticket plus the book with a signed bookplate runs $52.50 in person. A virtual ticket is $12, and a free virtual ticket bundled with a signed-bookplate copy is $43. The venue is at 600 I Street NW.

Autographed hardcovers are also being sold as pre-orders, with orders shipping two to four weeks after the Oct. 6 release. Douglas, who has two Academy Awards, five Golden Globes, a BAFTA, a Primetime Emmy and two SAG Awards, and who has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 1998, got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.

Forty-three years after the cameras rolled in Mexico, the cover story is retired.