Goldie & Kurt

Besides death and taxes, one of life’s no-fail constants seems to be the romance between Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell! The iconic, never-married pair have defied every Hollywood stereotype, settling into an unbreakable partnership based on, according to Goldie, “love, gratitude [and] compassion… family, fun, laughs, sex.” As they celebrate 35 years together, Star looks back at one of the rare Hollywood relationships with a real happy ending.

FAMILY BONDS Goldie was 21 and just starting out when she landed a bit part in her first feature film, 1968’s The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, and it was on-set that she met Kurt, who had a bigger role — and a smaller scope of life experience. “He was 16 and I thought he was adorable, but he was much too young,” Goldie has said. Fast-forward 15 years, and fate reconnected the pair, cast as the leads in the wartime rom-com Swing Shift. By then, Goldie, now an Oscar winner (for 1969’s Cactus Flower), had been twice married and twice divorced, and had two young children, Oliver and Kate, with ex Bill Hudson; and Kurt had a son, Boston, from his own fizzling marriage. But their onscreen chemistry felt inevitable, as did their offscreen romance — though Kurt has long marveled at the fact that he didn’t screw it up out of the gate. While rehearsing with Goldie, a “severely hungover” Kurt blurted out a gutsy pickup line: “She had a great body, so the first thing that came out was, ‘Man, you got a great figure,’” he recalled. “And it kind of came out quickly, and it could’ve been wrong — [but] she said, ‘Why, thank you.’” Goldie has since admitted that she was intrigued from the jump, gushing, “He was so good-looking.” Their chemistry, made famous in the 1987 classic Overboard, is renowned for a reason, after all. Still, it wasn’t Kurt’s swagger that sold Goldie. “What really got me was when I watched my kids when they’d come to

the set and see how he was with them. He was amazing… such a natural.” Oliver and Kate, who were 6 and 3 at the time, connected seamlessly with their mom’s costar — and still adoringly refer to Kurt, who raised them, as “Pa.” On Kurt’s birthday in 2015, Kate posted a loving tribute to the “man who made his family his number one priority his whole life… We felt the purity of that our whole childhood and my gratitude for his love is immeasurable.”

MAKING IT WORK While Kurt, 67, and Goldie, 72, went on to have son Wyatt in 1986, they steadfastly skipped over the marriage part of the equation — an oft-questioned decision that they’ve credited for their longevity as a couple. Goldie, who’s claimed that she and Kurt would be “long divorced” if they’d tied the knot, has explained, “Once you’ve [gotten married] twice, you realize that marriage, or the act of marrying, has nothing to do with the success. The idea is, Do we want to be there, or do we not want to be there?” Even their blended family of kids agreed when asked, on Kurt and Goldie’s 10th anniversary, if they thought their parents should finally get hitched. “They loved it… the way it [was],” Goldie said. “They didn’t want any more trouble!” Goldie has conceded that there’s had to be “an elasticity to the relationship.” Kurt was rocked by cheating claims in the past, along with rumors of Goldie’s having an affair — but they’ve withstood the rumor mill, clear in the conviction that the life they’ve built is worth every effort. “Intention is the key,” Goldie has said. “Being together, two pillars holding up the house and the roof, and being different, not having to agree on everything.” As Kurt recently put it, “There’s gonna be ups and downs and sideways and everything else. I just think after [all these] years, [we’ve] experienced every emotion that you can together.”