Brenda Vaccaro and Michael Douglas were close enough to marriage that the invitations were already being printed. Vaccaro says she still knew she had to stop it.
“I wasn’t in love with him anymore,” the actress, now 86, said on The Tom & Mickey Show, according to PEOPLE. She had fallen for actor Don Stroud.
The conversation with hosts Tom Postilio and Mickey Conlon originally appeared in the podcast’s June 2025 episode, “Flowin’ & Glowin’ with Brenda Vaccaro.” Excerpts received renewed coverage on Oct. 16.
Douglas revisits their relationship in One Helluva Ride, his memoir released Oct. 6. He interviewed Vaccaro while preparing the book and thanked her in its acknowledgments for helping him reconstruct their years together.
Their Families Wanted a Formal Wedding After a Backyard Ceremony
Years before the abandoned ceremony, Vaccaro and Douglas had gathered friends in their agent’s backyard for what she called a “hippie wedding.” Douglas gave her a leather ring, and they made a commitment to stay together. No priest officiated, and the gathering did not make them legally married.
Vaccaro recalled wondering why they needed another wedding after that celebration. Her father wanted a formal ceremony, as did Douglas’s father, Kirk Douglas, and his wife, Anne Buydens. The plans involved approximately 175 guests, although she cautioned that she might be misremembering the number.
She described the expectation to go through with those plans as “pressure, not love,” according to Entertainment Weekly. Vaccaro said her feelings had changed during their years together, while the families were moving toward a larger celebration of their commitment.
Stroud Later Said Their Relationship Lasted Years
Vaccaro and Stroud worked together on the 1976 thriller The House by the Lake. In the podcast conversation, she recalled getting into her Mercedes, driving to Malibu and going to be with him.
Stroud discussed their history in a 2001 interview with The Terror Trap, quoted in PEOPLE’s coverage. He called it a “major affair,” said it began while they were making the movie and recalled that it continued for at least three years afterward. Decades after the production, he still spoke of Vaccaro as a close friend.
Douglas Recalled Packing His Bags After a Phone Call
Douglas writes that he met Vaccaro while making Summertree, released in 1971. He remembered being drawn to her talent, humor and distinctive voice and regarded their time together as his most serious relationship up to that point.
His schedule on The Streets of San Francisco eventually left him with little energy for their visits. In excerpts published by PEOPLE, he recalled working six consecutive 14-hour days as Vaccaro traveled north from Los Angeles to see him. “She spent most of her visit watching me snore,” he wrote.
During a visit to Los Angeles, Douglas says he overheard her speaking intimately with Stroud on the phone and decided to pack his belongings. “I walked out to my car, holding back tears,” he wrote, according to EW. Looking back, he also acknowledged that they had grown apart and should have separated sooner, even though the breakup hurt him.
They Attended the Oscars Together as Their Relationship Ended
Douglas and Vaccaro attended the Academy Awards together on March 29, 1976, during the period when their relationship was ending. Both had work in contention that night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.
Douglas shared the Best Picture Oscar with fellow producer Saul Zaentz for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Vaccaro was nominated for supporting actress for Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough; Lee Grant won the category for Shampoo, according to the Academy.
In a separate May 2025 interview with Page Six, Vaccaro remembered the excitement of moving to California with Douglas as their careers developed. “I do still adore him,” she said. “I think he’s wonderful.”