For more than four decades, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have been one of Hollywood’s most enduring couples. Their romance has lasted since 1983, they raised a blended family together, welcomed son Wyatt Russell, and famously decided they never needed to marry.
But long before that relationship became Hollywood legend, Russell actually was married.
His first — and only — wife was actress Season Hubley, a striking blonde performer who worked alongside him before their off-screen romance turned into marriage.
Today, Hubley lives almost entirely outside Hollywood’s spotlight, and recent photographs of her are rare enough to trigger fascination whenever they surface.
Some online commenters have even compared her appearance with Hawn’s, calling Russell’s former wife “more beautiful than Goldie.”
Beauty, of course, is subjective. But the renewed attention has raised a more interesting question:
Who was Season Hubley, and what happened to her after her marriage to Kurt Russell ended?
Before Goldie, There Was Season
Susan “Season” Hubley was born in New York City in 1951.
By the 1970s, she had entered acting and was steadily building a career in television and film.
She appeared in shows including The Partridge Family, Kung Fu, The Rookies and Starsky & Hutch, becoming one of those recognizable young actresses who seemed to move effortlessly between the major television productions of the era.
Then came the project that would dramatically change her personal life.
She was cast alongside Kurt Russell.
The two worked together on the 1979 television movie Elvis, directed by John Carpenter, in which Russell portrayed Elvis Presley and Hubley played Priscilla Presley.
Their on-screen relationship soon became a real one.
Russell and Hubley married in 1979. Biography
Kurt Russell Was Already a Hollywood Veteran
Russell’s career had begun extraordinarily early.
He had been a child actor for Disney and appeared in television and movies long before becoming the rugged leading man audiences would later recognize from Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and Tombstone.
By the late 1970s, however, he was making an important transition from former child actor into serious adult performer.
His portrayal of Elvis Presley became one of the roles that helped establish that transition.
And Season was right there beside him.
Photos of the pair from that period capture two young Hollywood actors whose lives appeared to be moving in the same direction.
They weren’t simply costars anymore.
They became husband and wife.
They Welcomed Their Son Boston
In February 1980, Russell and Hubley welcomed their only child together, Boston Russell. Wikipedia
Boston would eventually become the quietest member of the sprawling Hawn-Russell-Hudson family.
Unlike several of his siblings, he largely avoided becoming a public-facing actor.
That makes the family tree slightly confusing for casual fans.
Kurt has two biological sons: Boston, with Season Hubley, and Wyatt, with Goldie Hawn.
Goldie has two older children, Oliver and Kate Hudson, from her marriage to musician Bill Hudson.
When Kurt and Goldie built their life together, those children became one blended family. Biography
But Kurt and Season’s Marriage Didn’t Last
Russell and Hubley’s marriage ended in 1983.
They had been married for approximately four years.
And 1983 would become an enormously important year in Russell’s personal life.
After his divorce from Hubley, Russell began his relationship with Goldie Hawn. Wikipedia
It was the beginning of a partnership that would eventually dwarf almost everything the public remembered about his previous marriage.
Goldie and Kurt Had Actually Met Years Earlier
One fascinating detail is that Russell and Hawn hadn’t technically met for the first time in 1983.
They had crossed paths much earlier while working on Disney’s The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.
Hawn was 21.
Russell was still a teenager.
Nothing romantic happened.
Years passed.
Both married other people.
Both had children.
Then they reunited professionally while making Swing Shift in the early 1980s.
This time, everything was different.
Hawn later recalled that she remembered finding Russell attractive when they first met, although he had been far too young for her at the time. Biography
By 1983, they were adults with marriages behind them and children to consider.
And the connection finally turned romantic.
Goldie Was a Divorced Mother of Two
Hawn wasn’t entering the relationship without a complicated romantic history of her own.
She had already been married twice.
Her first husband was dancer and director Gus Trikonis.
She later married musician Bill Hudson, with whom she welcomed Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson.
That marriage also ended in divorce.
So when Goldie and Kurt became a couple, neither was particularly eager to rush toward another wedding.
That decision became one of the defining features of their relationship.
More than four decades later, they still haven’t married.
Hawn has explained that she values the idea that they continue choosing one another rather than remaining together because of a legal obligation. Russell has similarly said that a marriage certificate wouldn’t create something their relationship didn’t already possess. Us
Season Hubley Continued Acting
Meanwhile, Hubley’s story didn’t simply end when she and Russell divorced.
She continued working.
One of her best-known movie roles came in John Carpenter’s cult classic Escape from New York, which also starred Russell.
She later appeared in the controversial 1979 drama Hardcore, starring George C. Scott, and accumulated numerous television credits.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, she continued appearing on television.
She played Angelique Voynitzheva Marick on the soap opera All My Children, introducing her to another audience entirely.
But eventually her acting career slowed.
By the late 1990s, Hubley had largely withdrawn from the entertainment industry.
Then She Became Almost Invisible
This is where Season’s life diverged sharply from those of Kurt and Goldie.
Russell remained a major movie star.
Hawn remained one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actresses.
Their children became celebrities.
Kate Hudson became an Oscar-nominated actress.
Oliver Hudson established a television career.
Wyatt Russell became an actor after initially pursuing hockey.
Even the family’s grandchildren became subjects of entertainment coverage.
Season, meanwhile, largely disappeared from public life.
She stopped appearing regularly at Hollywood events.
She wasn’t constantly photographed.
She didn’t build a public social-media persona.
And over time, recent photographs became increasingly difficult to find.
That is precisely why rare images of her today generate so much curiosity.
RARE PHOTOS Sparked Comparisons With Goldie
When photographs of Hubley resurfaced online, commenters inevitably began comparing her with Hawn.
Some declared Season “more beautiful.”
Others preferred Goldie.
Still others were simply surprised to discover that Russell had ever been married to someone before Hawn.
But comparing two women photographed under completely different circumstances and at different stages of life doesn’t reveal much beyond individual taste.
Season and Goldie also represented very different Hollywood images.
Hawn’s persona was exuberant, comedic and unmistakably public.
Hubley cultivated a considerably quieter presence.
And once she left acting, she didn’t spend decades maintaining a celebrity image.
The more fascinating contrast isn’t really between their faces.
It’s between their lives.
Goldie Became Part of Boston’s Family
One potentially awkward element of any blended family is the relationship between a child and a parent’s new partner.
Boston was very young when Kurt and Goldie became a couple.
Over time, he became part of the family they built together.
Goldie already had Oliver and Kate.
Kurt had Boston.
Then, in July 1986, Kurt and Goldie welcomed Wyatt Russell. Biography
The result was a blended family of four children.
Photographs taken over the decades show Boston appearing alongside Kurt, Goldie and his siblings, even though he has consistently maintained a lower public profile than most of them.
Kate Hudson Came to See Kurt as Her Father
Perhaps one of the strongest indications of how tightly the family blended comes from Kate Hudson.
Kate was only a small child when Russell entered her life.
Over the years, she has repeatedly spoken about him with enormous affection and has referred to him as “Pa.”
She has credited him with showing up consistently throughout her childhood and becoming the father figure who raised her. Vogue
Goldie has also recalled that watching Russell interact naturally with Oliver and Kate was one of the things that made her fall deeply in love with him. Biography
So although Russell’s marriage to Hubley ended, the son they shared became part of the new family structure that followed.
Kurt and Goldie Welcomed Wyatt in 1986
Three years after Russell and Hawn began their relationship, they welcomed Wyatt Russell.
Wyatt eventually followed his parents into entertainment after an earlier career in hockey.
His acting work has included Overlord, Lodge 49, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
With Wyatt’s arrival, Kurt’s family connected several different branches of Hollywood.
There was Boston, his son with Season.
Oliver and Kate, Goldie’s children with Bill Hudson.
And Wyatt, Kurt and Goldie’s son together.
Rather than being erased from the picture, Boston remained part of that family.
Season Chose a Completely Different Path
What happened to Season after Hollywood?
The answer is surprisingly ordinary.
She became private.
There was no giant reality-show comeback.
No decades-long attempt to capitalize on being “Kurt Russell’s first wife.”
No endless interviews about Goldie Hawn.
She simply stopped living publicly.
And perhaps that explains why people remain so fascinated by rare photographs of her.
Celebrity audiences are accustomed to seeing stars age gradually.
Goldie has been photographed throughout almost every stage of adulthood.
We’ve watched her change year by year.
Season hasn’t been nearly as visible.
When decades pass between familiar photographs and rare recent images, the change naturally feels more dramatic.
The Marriage Is Often Forgotten
Calling Hubley Russell’s “first wife” is technically correct, but there’s an interesting twist.
She’s also his only wife.
Russell never married Hawn.
That surprises people because Kurt and Goldie have been together for so long that they’re frequently assumed to be husband and wife.
But their decision not to marry has been deliberate.
They have repeatedly explained that they don’t believe marriage is necessary to validate their commitment. Us
So the only woman who has ever legally held the title “Mrs. Kurt Russell” is Season Hubley.
Kurt and Goldie Became Hollywood’s Unmarried Success Story
The irony is hard to miss.
Russell’s legal marriage lasted approximately four years.
His unmarried partnership with Hawn has lasted more than four decades.
The couple began dating around Valentine’s Day in 1983 and have remained together ever since. Wikipedia
They starred together in Swing Shift and later in the beloved 1987 comedy Overboard.
They raised their blended family.
They became grandparents.
And despite endless questions about marriage, they continued declining to make it legal.
For them, that arrangement worked.
Season Never Became a Rival in Their Public Story
One of the easiest ways to sensationalize this history is to frame Season and Goldie as rivals.
But the public record doesn’t support turning their lives into a decades-long competition.
Season and Kurt divorced.
Kurt moved on.
Season continued acting and later stepped away from Hollywood.
Goldie and Kurt built a life together.
That’s the story.
Internet commenters may debate which woman they consider more attractive, but there is no reason to project that competition onto the women themselves.
Ten Photos Tell Two Very Different Hollywood Stories
Looking through photographs of Season Hubley across the decades reveals a woman many younger fans may barely recognize.
Early images show the actress during the height of her career.
Photos from her marriage to Russell capture a young Hollywood couple before anyone knew Goldie Hawn would become Kurt’s lifelong partner.
Later images show Season at a different stage of life.
And the rarest recent photographs offer something celebrity culture doesn’t always allow:
a woman aging largely outside public scrutiny.
Goldie’s aging has happened publicly.
Season’s happened privately.
Neither experience is inherently better.
They’re simply different.
Goldie and Kurt Are Still Together
More than four decades after reconnecting, Goldie and Kurt remain partners.
Their relationship has lasted through changing careers, parenthood, grandchildren and the ordinary pressures of aging.
They have also repeatedly rejected the idea that a wedding is necessary to make their partnership legitimate.
Recent coverage continues to describe them as one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting unmarried couples. InStyle
It’s an unusual outcome considering that both entered the relationship after divorce.
Perhaps their previous marriages helped shape what they wanted next.
And Season Remains Part of Kurt’s Story
Goldie Hawn may be the woman most closely associated with Kurt Russell.
After more than 40 years together, that makes perfect sense.
But Season Hubley occupies a chapter that shouldn’t simply disappear.
She met Russell when both were actors.
She portrayed Priscilla opposite his Elvis.
They fell in love.
They married.
They became parents to Boston.
And even after their marriage ended, that family connection remained permanent.
The relationship may have lasted only a few years, but its legacy didn’t.
The RARE PHOTOS Reveal Something Bigger Than Beauty
Online users can continue debating whether young Season Hubley was “more beautiful” than Goldie Hawn.
There will never be an objective answer.
Beauty isn’t a competition with a measurable winner.
But the photographs reveal something more interesting.
They capture two completely different chapters of Kurt Russell’s life.
Season represents the young actor who married his costar and became a father for the first time.
Goldie represents the partner with whom he would build an extraordinary four-decade relationship and blended family.
One woman largely left Hollywood behind.
The other remained famous around the world.
And while Goldie and Kurt became one of entertainment’s most recognizable couples, Season Hubley quietly became the forgotten woman at the beginning of that story — Kurt Russell’s first, and only, wife. Wikipedia
For more peeks into the lives of stars, take a look at these rare photos of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping out together, or see how Shelley Long looks today after stepping away from the spotlight. And for a touching, personal story, you can view Chad Lowe’s daughter’s heartbreaking photos of her late sister.
