When Michael Douglas married Diandra Luker, she was already used to the finer things in life, having grown up as the daughter of a wealthy diplomat. Vanity Fair reports that Douglas was doing alright too. He was a successful TV actor who starred in the long-running cop drama “The Streets of San Francisco.” He’d also just won a Best Picture Oscar as a producer on “One Flew Under the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Douglas’ celebrity currency increased, and his movie career took off. Luker struggled with the Hollywood lifestyle and decamped to Santa Barbara and then Manhattan. They started to grow apart. Douglas began drinking heavily and cashing in on his A-list status. His wife soon grew sick of his partying and womanizing. Douglas checked into rehab in a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, but the writing was on the wall. In 1995, Luker filed for divorce. After it was finalized, the outside world got a glimpse at how much Douglas was really worth.
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Per Harpers Bazaar, Luker walked away with $45 million in addition to their sprawling Santa Barbara estate — making it one of the most expensive celebrity splits ever. Still, Luker wasn’t done yet. Channeling her inner Gordon Gekko, she returned eleven years later, demanding 50% of Douglas’ payment for the 2010 sequel to “Wall Street.” “I am not a greedy person by nature,” Luker told Harpers. “I ask myself every night if I should walk away.”
