The very public and very ugly divorce proceedings of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have closed the book for many people who believe there is no such thing as a happy Hollywood marriage. How can there be? A high-profile actor’s life is tough enough as it is…times two, it’s more than doubly difficult. Careers, co-stars, tabloids,
reporters…perhaps Steve Martin said it best when he remarked to Tom Hanks at this year’s Oscars, “[Hollywood marriages are] difficult because…well, we sleep with so many different people.” But there are the exceptions: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are heading into their fifth decade of marriage. There’s also Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks (37 years), Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards (32 years), Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy (16 years). Even Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have made it to 15. We’re not saying any of the following six couples (who have been together less than 10 years) will necessarily make it to their golden anniversaries. But they’re couples we at least hope last forever. Should any of them read this, consider it a plea: Please don’t let our jaded perception of Tinseltown matrimony crumble any further.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
Together since: 1998
That’s amoré: They met at the Deauville Film Festival in France in 1998. Intrigued by the Welsh actress’ performance in The Mask of Zorro (1998), Douglas, now 56, asked Zeta-Jones, now 31, out to dinner and promptly declared, “I want to father your children!” He began courting her shortly after.
Screen collaborations: Traffic (2000). They were never in the same scene, but Douglas’ judge cracked down on the drug war while Zeta-Jones transported cocaine across the border.
Wedding bells: The pair were married in a lavish New York wedding on Nov. 18, 2000, soon after the birth of their son, Dylan Michael.
Why they work: When we first heard they were together, we shuddered and Jay Leno brought out all his cradle-robbing jokes. But you’ve got to admit, they’re quite the classy couple of Hollywood. Zeta-Jones is much better suited to hosting refined cocktail parties than cavorting at nightclubs with other actors her age. And Douglas, though wrinkled ’round the eyes, has never seemed younger.
Loving words: “[Michael’s] family and my family have a lot in common,” Zeta-Jones told Hollywood.com last year. Adds Douglas of his wife: “She’s just well grounded. She left at 15 to start working and I think the success she had, and all the press hoopla and everything–she’s an old soul in a lot of ways.”
Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon
Together since: 1997
That’s amoré: Miserable in 1997 after a breakup, then-23-year-old Phillippe was invited to Witherspoon’s 21st birthday party through their mutual publicist because Witherspoon wanted to meet him. He went for the free drinks, but spent the next five weeks exchanging phone calls and letters with the young actress. Two months later, while filming Pleasantville, Witherspoon’s co-star Tobey Maguire convinced her to hop on a plane and spend a weekend with Phillippe in North Carolina where he was shooting I Know What You Did Last Summer. First panic, then love, set in.
Screen collaborations: Phillippe manipulated, dumped, and then fell in love with Witherspoon’s sweet virgin in Cruel Intentions (1999).
Wedding bells: Witherspoon found out she was pregnant in early 1999. Seven months later they were married in a small ceremony on a plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina, on June 5. Ava Elizabeth was born Sept. 9 (9-9-99, her father points out).
Why they work: They’re both so young and cute, and cute together. He’s the bad boy who’s actually good; she’s the Southern good girl (the daughter of doctors, she’s a bona fide debutante) not afraid to play bad. Though popular with the MTV crowd, neither of them are Hollywood enough to live a paparazzi-hounded life.
Loving words: “The person I trust most in this world is Reese, definitely. She’s that pure-hearted a person, and that honest,” Phillippe told Hollywood.com. “If you’re both considerate of each other and you don’t get lazy about the relationship, you’ll do all right. I don’t think you have a child to have it spend its time with someone who didn’t take part in creating it.…We determined that no movie is important enough that we couldn’t say no [to it].”
Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke
Together since: 1997
That’s amoré: They met first at an ATM machine and again at the opening of 1994’s Pulp Fiction. But it wasn’t until they worked together in Gattaca (1997), in which the usually grungy Hawke was so devilishly clean-shaven and handsome, that Thurman (who was married and divorced to Gary Oldman by the time she was 20) began to fall hard.
Screen collaborations: Aside from Gattaca, they co-starred this year in Richard Linklater‘s Sundance entry Tape. Thurman, 31, also stars in Hawke’s upcoming directorial debut, Last Word on Paradise.
Wedding bells: After their engagement Thurman found out she was pregnant, but balked at the thought of a last-minute ceremony. “I didn’t want a shotgun wedding,” she told Talk magazine. “Then there I was, seven months pregnant, and I realized I would have to go to the hospital and give birth to my baby, and I thought about who would be my next of kin. I realized that I wanted Ethan to be my next of kin. So I demanded to marry him.” Three weeks later they were wed. Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke was born July 8, 1998. The couple’s second child is due in January.
Why they work: It’s a case of the young and carefree finally finding a reason to settle down. Both found stardom early, then took their “low” periods gracefully (The Avengers, anyone?). Their beatnik/Renaissance lifestyle finds Thurman going from Merchant Ivory to Tarantino to Lancôme perfume ads, while Hawke, 30, pens novels, performs Shakespeare and plays guitar to their daughter in the park. Neither star is a workaholic; neither actor’s star eclipses the other. It helps that they also articulate, soulful and beautiful.
Loving words: “I’d never worry about him with a leading lady. I’m not even worried about him straying,” Thurman told Talk. “I could torture the poor guy and drive him into some other situation. But he’s not the kind of person whose behavior would come unmotivated. If something happened in our relationship I’m sure it would be my fault. I’m 100 percent sure of it.”
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
Together since: 1995
That’s amoré: They met at Pinkett‘s audition for Smith‘s early ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Pinkett didn’t get the job, but they became friends. Years later, Smith’s marriage to Sheree Zampino (mother of his son Trey, 8) ended, and Pinkett had just ended a relationship. They consoled each other through their breakups and became a couple of their own.
Screen collaborations: Their first screen match-up will be in the upcoming Michael Mann-directed Ali, for which Smith, 32, hopes his portrayal of Muhammad Ali will garner him an Oscar nod. Pinkett will take a small role as Ali’s first wife.
Wedding bells: Months before their New Year’s Eve 1997 wedding, Pinkett, 29, was pregnant with their son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. Daughter Willow (named after Will, as Jaden was after Jada) was born last October.
Why they work: Sheer warm fuzziness. While the ever-lovable Smith may be a Fresh Prince, Pinkett is the queen of the household and her spunk ensures everyone knows it. She’s also got enough security to value motherhood over career. When Smith asked her why she didn’t work harder to further her huge career potential, she replied, “Well, someone has to be able to take the kids to Disneyland, and you can’t do it.”
Loving words: “This is it for me. If this doesn’t work, maybe I’ll give Ellen [DeGeneres] a call,” Pinkett Smith said on The Oprah Winfrey Show back in 1997.
David Duchovny and Téa Leoni
Together since: 1997
That’s amoré: In 1992, a pre-X-Files Duchovny and Leoni, who was starring on the doomed TV show Flying Blind, met on an interview audition for The Tonight Show. A bubbly, nervous Leoni didn’t stop talking, which peeved the quiet Duchovny. She went on to marry a commercial director, then had an affair with the married executive producer of her 1995 sitcom The Naked Truth. After being re-introduced through their agent by telephone, the two soon tumbled into a romance.
Screen collaborations: Leoni, 35, played herself on a 1993 episode of The X-Files as an actress playing Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) for a Hollywood adaptation.
Wedding bells: Finally, a couple whose walk to the altar wasn’t heralded by baby rattles. In 1997, just four months into their courtship, the two were married in a private ceremony in New York City. Two years later daughter Madelaine West was born.
Why they work: He’s the stoic scholar whose dry tone always suggests he’s saying something too clever for you to comprehend; she’s the husky-voiced beauty whose comedic flair sparked early comparisons to Lucille Ball. But they both have brains, they’re both New York brash, and the thought of their union is wholly amusing.
Loving words: “She’s very unimpressed with Hollywood in the sense of going to parties or premieres or openings or wearing the best clothes or having the highest-grossing movie,” Duchovny, 40, told Cosmopolitan. “Téa’s just very funny and game and strong. And she’s much more realistic than me. She has her head on straight.”
Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn
Together since: 1990; broke up once during 1995-96
That’s amoré: The 40-year-old actor/director met in 1987 (two years before his divorce from Madonna), but did not become romantic until they worked together in the 1990 film State of Grace. He romanced singer Jewel during their breakup five years later, but the couple reunited in early 1996. When Wright was ill during that year’s Academy Awards, Penn skipped the ceremony despite his Best Actor nomination for Dead Man Walking to be at her side.
Screen collaborations:State of Grace, She’s So Lovely (1997), Loved (1997), Hurlyburly (1998). Penn also directed Wright in The Crossing Guard (1995) and The Pledge (2001).
Wedding bells: Penn and Wright, both 35, married on April 27, 1996, one month after the Oscars. By that time, they were already the parents of daughter Dylan, 10, and son Hopper, 7.
Why they work: The best stories are the ones where love tames the “bad boy”–but not too much. Penn’s reputation for being brooding, volatile, and altogether brilliant haven’t dimmed since his union with Wright, but the fact that they’ve stayed together this long is a good sign that he’s definitely overcome his wild Madonna years and cemented a new chapter of his life: stability.
Loving words: On being directed by her husband through a kissing scene with Jack Nicholson in The Pledge, Wright told Hollywood.com: “[Jack] was holding my face this close, going, ‘Are you OK?’ and my husband’s right there. And in between the takes I went outside and said ‘Sean, hug me.’ I needed him to hug me.” Of their relationship, she says: “You have knockdown, drag-out fights, and then you make up…I think anything else would be boring.”
