Michael Douglas has opened up about a secret romance he experienced while making the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the hit film follows a tense psychological battle between Douglas’ detective and Sharon Stone’s glamorous murder suspect.
The intense on-screen chemistry between Douglas and Stone sparked years of speculation that the two had become romantically involved. According to Douglas’ new memoir, however, his real feelings were focused on someone else.
The actor, now 82, says he developed a relationship with Jeanne Tripplehorn, who portrayed his character’s police psychologist and romantic partner in the movie.
“The truth is, I fell very hard for Jeanne despite our nearly 20-year age difference,” Douglas writes in One Helluva Ride.
Tripplehorn was 28 and unmarried when Basic Instinct arrived in cinemas, while Douglas was 47 and still married to his first wife, model Diandra Luker.
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Tripplehorn for comment.
Michael Douglas has revealed details of a romance he experienced while filming the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct
The 82-year-old actor said he became romantically involved with Jeanne Tripplehorn, who played his police psychologist and love interest
In his autobiography, Douglas admits he was “crazy about” Tripplehorn and had reached the point where he was “ready to officially leave my wife for Jeanne.”
Ultimately, though, he decided that moving directly from his 15-year marriage into a new relationship would have been the “worst thing” he could do.
“My relationship with Jeanne lasted through production, then we went our separate ways,” Douglas writes. “But I will always think of her as an amazing actress and a truly terrific woman that I was very fortunate to spend time with.”
Douglas and Luker separated three years after Basic Instinct was released. In 2000, he married Catherine Zeta-Jones, 57. The couple have two children, son Dylan, 26, and daughter Carys, 23.
Tripplehorn also married in 2000, tying the knot with her Very Bad Things co-star Leland Orser. They welcomed their son, August, two years later.
Douglas’ memoir also revisits another long-standing Hollywood rumor, revealing that he and Kathleen Turner had an affair while filming the 1984 adventure comedy Romancing the Stone.
At the time, Douglas was married to Luker, while Turner was dating real estate businessman Jay Weiss, whom she later married. Despite their relationships, the two co-stars became intimate during production.
Speculation about the alleged romance grew so intense that Luker traveled to the film’s Mexican set to confront Turner, who has consistently denied the affair in public.
Douglas writes that he was “crazy about” Tripplehorn and “ready to officially leave” his wife for her; the pair are pictured together in Basic Instinct
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Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct follows Douglas’ detective as he becomes entangled in a dangerous game with Sharon Stone’s murder suspect
Tripplehorn was 28 and unmarried when Basic Instinct was released, while 47-year-old Douglas remained married to model Diandra Luker; Douglas and Luker are pictured in 1993
However Douglas has now admitted to the dalliance, revealing in his book how he and Turner were instantly enraptured by ‘lust’ for one another.
‘Kathleen was smart, funny and sexy, with a deep sultry voice that became her signature,’ said the ‘nepo baby’ of Old Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas. ‘I instantly liked her and we were immediately attracted to each other.’
His home life, he maintained, was ‘in a bad place. Diandra and I were both having extramarital affairs. The truth is that during the production of Romancing the Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship.’
Far from being ‘a fly-by night affair,’ their romance ‘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.’
They were apparently able to conceal the affair from their colleagues, up to and including their co-star Danny De Vito and director Robert Zemeckis.
‘Following an exhausting day of shooting in the jungle, we’d go out and have a meal, or head out with the group and afterward I would sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep,’ the Fatal Attraction star shared.
Luker brought the affair to an end when she made her appearance on the set of the film, bringing her and Douglas’ four-year-old son Cameron.
However the professional connection between Douglas and Kathleen survived, and in 1985 they led a sequel to Romancing the Stone called The Jewel of the Nile.
In 1989 they reunited onscreen yet again for the dark divorce comedy The War of the Roses, this time with DeVito as their director.
Douglas and Turner struck a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ to publicly deny their past love connection , a move he characterized as a bid ‘to protect my wife and son.’
He wrote in his new book: ‘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.’
Turner had indeed used the quoted phrase in an interview with The Mail on Sunday a few years ago in which she insisted their attraction never escalated into a full fling.
‘The chemistry was there and Michael and I were both terrible flirts. We were in the jungle and I was feeling very romantic towards him. It was going to happen,’ she said.
‘Then I walked on set one day and his wife was suddenly there. She sat next to him and that was that. You don’t mess with another woman’s husband.’
However Turner has reacted with equanimity to Douglas’ indiscretion about her in his memoirs, saying: ‘Good heavens, what a fuss about something 40 years ago! I love Michael and I look forward to enjoying the book.’