'That's what we all said': screen legend's Oscar dig at music icon

Michael Douglas has reopened one of the Oscars' oldest debates. The actor, 82, says his Fatal Attraction co-star Glenn Close should have won Best Actress in 1988, the year the award went to Cher.

"She should have won with Fatal Attraction," Douglas said on The Graham Norton Show, sitting beside Close, 79.

When he brought up Cher's win for Moonstruck, Norton replied: "Oh, wow."

Douglas didn't back down. "I know, that's what we all said."

Close's reaction? "Michael, be kind!"

At the 60th Academy Awards on April 11, 1988, Cher won Best Actress for playing Loretta Castorini in Moonstruck, a widow who falls for her fiancé's younger brother, played by Nicolas Cage.

Close was up for playing Alex Forrest, the book editor whose affair with Douglas's married lawyer, Dan Gallagher, spirals into something far darker. It was her fourth nomination and her first for Best Actress, AV Club notes. Fatal Attraction and Moonstruck had six nominations each, including Best Picture, and both lost that one to The Last Emperor.

Douglas didn't go home empty-handed. He won Best Actor that night for Wall Street, and posed backstage with Cher, both holding their Oscars. Moonstruck also won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress.

It was Cher's second nomination, after Best Supporting Actress for Silkwood in 1984.

Close has now had eight competitive Oscar nominations, and has never won.

'We were idiots'

Douglas was on the show to promote his new memoir, One Helluva Ride, and he didn't spare himself either. He admitted he and the producers didn't think Close was "right for the part" at first.

"But she insisted on auditioning and she blew us away. We had never been so wrong in our lives. We were idiots," he said.

Close remembered the fight over the film's ending. "They were angry and wanted her dead," she said, and she was asked to reshoot it six months later.

"I fought against it and was very cross as I didn't see her as a psychopath," she said. "Alex became the most hated woman in America."

Cher responds

The clip spread on social media over the weekend, Cover Media reported. Soon after, Cher's publicist issued a brief statement to Fox News Digital: "Cher adores Michael Douglas."

Fox News Digital said she "seemingly brushed off" the comments. Cher, born Cheryl Sarkisian, has not responded directly herself. Douglas's representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Close won't have to wait much longer for her own statuette. She is set to receive an honorary Academy Award at the Governors Awards on Nov. 15.

Her theory on the timing: "They probably don't want to feel guilty anymore."