The Secrets of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas’ Enduring Love

“Michael was there promoting A Perfect Murder, and he asked to meet me,” she recalled to the New Yorker in April. “I remember I walked through the door of the hotel when I arrived, and he walked right past me with his golf bag on his shoulder. I went, ‘OK, guess he really wants to meet me, he just walked right past me.’ He knew Antonio [Banderas, her Zorro co-star] and Melanie [Griffith, Banderas’ wife at the time] for many years, and he joined us all for drinks and dinner. That night we found out we have the same birthday.”

And, famously, Douglas told Zeta-Jones—who was born on Sept. 25 just as he was, only 25 years later—right then and there that he was going to be the father of her children.

“And I went, ‘All right. I’ve read a lot about you. I’ve seen a lot about you. I heard a lot about you. Good night,'” she continued, “And I went to bed and got up at 5 a.m. I went to London, changed planes, went to Aberdeen, got on a ferry across to the Isle of Mull. And there was a big bouquet of flowers saying ‘I’m sorry if I scared you. Love, Michael Douglas.’ He always says whoever was the florist who got those flowers to the Isle of Mull saved his life. I will say if somebody says they’re going to father your children when you’ve just met them, it is a little scary. Unfortunately he was right, again.”

In fact, Zeta-Jones told ET in 2016 that, while she couldn’t pinpoint her favorite career moment, her all-time high was “giving birth to two of my kids, and him being the first one to hold them was pretty amazing.”