In Europe for the publicity for both Fatal Attraction and Wall Street, Douglas was booked to attend the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. While he was there he met a 24-year-old Italian B-movie startlet named Loredana Romito, a pouting brunette who had been discovered by Federico Fellini.
At the time Romito was promoting an Italian film called Fatal Temptation – a rather obvious rip-off of Fatal Attraction. When Romito and Douglas both attended one of the lavish promotional parties for which Cannes is renowned Romito secured an introduction. A photographer just happened to be on hand to capture a shot of the two of them together, Michael in elegant tuxedo and Loredana, attired in a low-cut black dress, nestling close, with her arms around his shoulder.
Loredana says their encounter at Cannes was brief, only two days, but claims it was “wonderful” and that Douglas kept in touch. During the next six months they met again, first in Paris and, towards the end of the summer, in Rome and later in Japan. Only Douglas himself, as the other party, can confirm whether or not they had an “affair”, as Loredana claimed. Such a claim would bring rather blatant publicity advantages to herself. Nothing leaked out at the time, apart from the photograph, which could be dismissed as taken at a purely innocent meeting. However, it was no secret among his closest friends at the time that Douglas’s marriage to his first wife, Diandra, was once again passing through stormy waters.