Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell Are ‘Soulmates,’ Friends Say as They Reflect on Her Career, Love Life and More

You’ve got to meet this girl,” a friend told Rowan & Martin’s LaughIn producer George Schlatter in 1967. “I said, ‘We’re not using dancers,’” George recalls to Closer. Wisely, he took the tip and invited Goldie Hawn, then 22, to come in for a meeting. “She sat in this big, red leather chair and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’” he remembers. “I just fell in love with her, but I didn’t know what to do with her because she wasn’t a comic.”

George decided that Goldie would do introductions on the countercultural variety series. The first time she flubbed a line and giggled nervously in response, lightning struck. After that, Goldie wasn’t allowed to rehearse so the cameras would record her genuine reaction when she messed up. “Ruth Buzzi would always do something to screw up Goldie’s cards,” George recalls. “When Goldie gets confused, she laughs and her laugh is just golden.”

That laugh has taken her a long way. Two years after her debut on Laugh-In, Goldie won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Walter Matthau’s suicidal girlfriend in Cactus Flower. “Winning the Oscar was a total whirlwind for Goldie,” says a friend. “She was already popular from the TV show, but now she was officially the It Girl of the time.”

Goldie Hawn Reveals Her Biggest 'Regret' In Her Iconic Hollywood Career

But everything happened so fast that Goldie barely had time to adjust. “It was a very strange ride, a quick rise to stardom,” says Goldie, 79. “I was unsettled. I didn’t know where I was going. I went to the psychologist when I was 21 and I continued for about eight years.”

Goldie Hawn Faced Ups and Downs in Her Love Life

In 1969, the same year Goldie won the Oscar, she married her boyfriend of three years, fellow dancer Gus Trikonis, who appeared as one of the Sharks in 1961’s beloved film adaptation of West Side Story. “They were young, her career was just beginning,” says the friend, who explains that Goldie’s meteoric rise complicated their union. “They just started drifting apart and began living separate lives.”

Goldie admits that she was still in the process of figuring out who she was and what she wanted. “I had drained my bucket. I wanted to go somewhere … and meditate,” she says. She didn’t file for divorce until after she met musician Bill Hudson on a plane ride in 1975. “I really was feeling it was time to look for a family,” says the star, who wed Bill in 1976 and welcomed their son, Oliver Hudson, later that year. The couple’s daughter, actress Kate Hudson, arrived in 1979.

Goldie insists that she always dreamed of marriage and children more than fame, but once again her career came between them. “If you ask Bill, he’d say Goldie wasn’t invested in their marriage, but she knows the truth,” says the friend. “She knew they weren’t meant to last after their last child was born.”

Goldie also felt victimized by California’s community property laws during her two divorces. When she split with Gus, who went on to a career as a director, his lawyer demanded a $75,000 payout. A few years later in her settlement with Bill, he got to keep their $2 million Malibu beach house. “You want to know where their dignity is as human beings,” Goldie says generally of ex-spouses who accept big settlements. “I’d pick up [garbage] on the street before I’d ask someone for money.”

In 1980, Goldie scored the biggest hit of her career with Private Benjamin, a universally beloved comedy about a pampered princess who learns to become self-reliant by joining the Army. Goldie would receive a Best Actress nomination for the film, which she also produced. “I didn’t plan on becoming a producer,” she explains. “I only wanted to create better roles for myself, and I loved the idea of Private Benjamin so much that I felt it would be the perfect opportunity to finally control my own destiny.”

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell Are Best Friends

That became a theme in her personal life too. Goldie had first tried Transcendental Meditation in the 1970s and found it a useful tool for feeling calm and grounded. “It stabilized my mind and gave me a piece of my interior that was all mine,” she explains. “No one could touch it. It was my internal universe and it’s something I’ve been doing ever since.”

When she fell in love with Kurt Russell while filming 1987’s Overboard together, Goldie found another piece of the puzzle that had been missing from her life. Kurt, the father of a son, Boston Russell, from his previous marriage, seemed wonderfully at ease around Goldie’s kids who were 6 and 4 at the time. “It wasn’t just because he was sexy and handsome and all those things you get turned on by,” she recalls. “It was because he matched my devotion to children to be number one.”

Goldie Hawn 'Loves Being a Grandmother' to 8 Grandkids: 'Happiness'

The committed but never-married couple added their son, Wyatt Russell, to their blended family in 1986. They have known some rough patches, and even put the brakes on their relationship at one point, but they have endured. “She and Kurt are soulmates,” says the friend. “Sometimes she says she doesn’t know why it works so well, but they’re good people. They’re best friends, they trust each other, and they let each other be themselves. They also really like each other.”

Becoming a grandmother has made life even sweeter. “I do love being a grandmother, but I’m not the boss,” says Goldie. “I’m just the one that can deliver happiness to them, and also an ear if they need it.”

Goldie Hawn’s Family Is Her World

Goldie still enjoys acting. In 2020, she and Kurt costarred in The Christmas Chronicles 2 as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. She’s also searching for a project that she, Kurt and her children can do together.

Her greatest passion, however, is bringing MindUP, a classroom program developed through her Goldie Hawn Foundation, to school kids. The curriculum seeks to teach children techniques for dealing with anxiety, depression and hopelessness — the kind of inner work that helped Goldie find her joy again.

“I’ve come to believe that seeking happiness is not a frivolous pursuit,” Goldie says. “It’s honorable and necessary.”

Life has come full circle for Goldie, who once struggled to find herself in the reflection of the giggling actress that everyone in the world believed they knew but didn’t. Back then, strangers would often recognize Goldie on the street and demand that she laugh for them. “It used to irritate me,” she admits, but today Goldie’s laughter is genuine and comes from the heart.