McDonald described himself as “really, really devastated.” Davis has not disputed that account. In her 2022 memoir, Dying of Politeness, she acknowledged that her romance with Goldblum overlapped with her engagement to McDonald.
“When I left for the movie, I was living with-and engaged to-one of the most wonderful men I’ve ever known, the actor Christopher McDonald,” she wrote. “He was and is a truly beautiful person.”
Davis then stated the matter without polishing it: “And I broke his heart to be with Jeff, I’m ashamed to say. He didn’t deserve that at all, and this dear man eventually forgave me, for which I will always be grateful.”
No new public response has come from Davis, Goldblum or Begley since McDonald’s remarks. Representatives for Davis and Goldblum also had not commented.
When did Davis and Goldblum begin their relationship?
Some older accounts differ slightly on the precise timing. A 1992 Vanity Fair profile reported that Davis and Goldblum met while making Transylvania 6-5000, with Begley introducing them during a screening of the day’s footage. It said they became lovers before production began on David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
A 1990 Los Angeles Times profile described Davis and Goldblum as “courting” during The Fly the following year. Davis’s own memoir, however, provides the clearest account of the overlap with McDonald: she explicitly said she ended the engagement to be with Goldblum.
McDonald’s description of Transylvania 6-5000 as Davis’s “first movie” appears to mean her first film made in Europe. It was not her screen debut. She had already appeared in Tootsie and Fletch, among other credits.
Davis and Goldblum went on to appear together in three films:
- Transylvania 6-5000
- The Fly
- Earth Girls Are Easy
They married spontaneously in Las Vegas in 1987 after Begley suggested it, according to The Washington Post. That gave Begley a remarkably active supporting role in the relationship, from the introduction to the wedding proposal idea. Davis and Goldblum divorced in 1990.
Why did the former couple reunite for Thelma & Louise?
Six years after the breakup, Davis and McDonald found themselves sharing the screen in Ridley Scott’s 1991 film Thelma & Louise. Davis played Thelma Dickinson, while McDonald portrayed Darryl, her controlling and thoroughly unpleasant husband.
The casting was not an accident of Hollywood administration. Davis wrote in her memoir that she recommended McDonald because she knew he would be right for the role.
“Chris is an incredibly talented actor, and one of the funniest people you’d ever meet,” she wrote, adding that this had been one reason she fell in love with him.
After director Ridley Scott told Davis that McDonald had been cast, the former couple met for lunch. McDonald said they “hugged it out” and spent a “really lovely afternoon” together.
Then came the production’s slightly brutal request. McDonald and Davis posed for fictional wedding photographs that set decorators could display around Thelma and Darryl’s home.
“We did what I think is probably the most ironic thing in the world: Let’s do wedding pictures and put them around the house for the set decorators,” McDonald said. “We did all that, it turned out great and we’re dear friends now.”
It was an efficient piece of casting: old emotional history repurposed as set decoration, with everyone apparently behaving like adults.
Where their lives went after the split
McDonald married actor Lupe Gidley in 1992. They have four children. His later career included roles in Happy Gilmore, Requiem for a Dream, Hacks and numerous television series and films.
After divorcing Goldblum, Davis married filmmaker Renny Harlin in 1993. They divorced in 1998. She later married plastic surgeon Reza Jarrahy, with whom she has three children. Their marriage ended in 2021.
Goldblum married Emilie Livingston in 2014, and they have two children.
The central facts have remained consistent across McDonald’s account and Davis’s memoir. She left him after falling for Goldblum, McDonald was deeply hurt, and Davis later took responsibility for it. Their eventual reconciliation did not erase the breakup, but it did lead to one of cinema’s more unusual casting reunions and a friendship that survived the sort of beginning most people would prefer not to revisit in front of an audience.
