Turner, Douglas Turn Friendship Off Screen Into Sparks on Screen

He is meticulous, courteous, a man who likes to laugh with old friends. She can be stubborn, likes to shock and goes through life at full speed.

Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are being hailed as Hollywood’s hottest screen couple since Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Douglas and Turner are together for their third film in five years in “War of the Roses,” a dark comedy of a beautiful marriage that turns into a brawling, no-holds-barred divorce battle for home and furniture.

Turner, who plays Barbara Rose, has said that her favorite lines of the film are when she tells her husband, played by Douglas, her reasons for seeking a divorce: “Because when I watch you eat, when I see you sleep, when I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in.”

The film, which took in $9.5 million at the box office in its first three days, is one of the hits of the season and is expected to win a string of Academy Award nominations.

Turner, 35, appeared with Douglas, nine years older, in “Romancing the Stone,” which brought in $76.5 million, and “The Jewel of the Nile,” its $65.6-million sequel.

“Michael and I have a real complementary sense of each other,” Turner said. “I feel very safe with him, but not dull.”

“If you can spend 12 hours a day with someone in a studio and still enjoy someone’s company, you’re onto something worth keeping,” Douglas said.

However, unlike Tracy and Hepburn, who made nine films in 25 years, friendship does not linger off screen. Douglas, son of Kirk Douglas and married to Diandra Lucker for 12 years, relaxes quietly in his home near Santa Barbara.

Turner, who married real estate agent Jay Weiss five years ago and has a 2-year-old daughter, stays in the bustle of New York.

Actor Danny DeVito, who appeared with Turner and Douglas in their three films and directed “War of the Roses,” said Turner and Douglas were his automatic first choices for the film. “This is the way films were made in the old days,” he said.

The relationship between Turner and Douglas was not always on such a happy level. When Turner decided to ignore her contract and not report for “The Jewel of the Nile,” Douglas, as producer, filed a $25-million lawsuit for damages.

Turner said later she did not object to making the sequel but wanted changes in the script. The lawsuit was dropped, and she got her way.