ANGELINA JOLIE & BRAD PITT


ANGELINA JOLIE & BRAD PITT: He was a certified heartthrob, one half of Hollywood's golden couple du jour with then-wife Jennifer Aniston. She was as notorious as she was beautiful, twice married and divorced to other actors, and known for matter-of-fact sound bites skeptical of traditional relationships. But when they became a couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie surprised pundits and fans alike by forging a rapidly expanding multi-cultural family, revealing new depths of social activism entwined with a touching commitment to their kids, including adopted son Maddox and daughter Zahara Pitt-Jolie, and their first child together, Shiloh Nouvel, born in 2006.

PAUL NEWMAN & JOANNE WOODWARD


When they tied the knot in January, 1958, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were rising stars gifted with the good looks required for leading men and ladies. As critics and fans would soon learn, both brought considerably more to the partnership: Newman and Woodward would mature into compelling character actors, and by making their home in Westport, Conn., away from Tinseltown's glare, they found room for ongoing live theater and philanthropic projects. Asked by Empire magazine how he could remain faithful over nearly five decades, Newman replied, "Why fool around with hamburgers when you have steak at home?"

ELIZABETH TAYLOR & RICHARD BURTON


A symbol of studio excess, 20th Century-Fox's 1963 epic, "Cleopatra," triggered mounting speculation for its over-the-top production costs, which nearly sank the legendary studio. Yet budget overruns and Cyclopean sets soon were eclipsed by the more scandalous details of the real-life affair between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, playing Marc Antony and the movie's titular queen. Both stars were in high profile marriages, but their dalliance bloomed into a grand passion worthy of a brooding stage actor and a Hollywood diva who had "stolen" fourth hubby Eddie Fisher from erstwhile pal Debbie Reynolds. Burton and Taylor's attraction was evidently immediate and would prove stormy indeed, its turbulence fueled by the Welsh actor's alcoholism and played out in public. Married in 1964, they divorced a decade later only to re-marry in 1975. Ironically, the reconciliation fizzled a year later when Burton's efforts at moderation apparently invited Taylor's scorn.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS & HEATH LEDGER


For Ang Lee's acclaimed film of "Brokeback Mountain," Michelle Williams was cast opposite Australian actor Heath Ledger, playing the sweet and unsuspecting woman who would wed Ledger's conflicted cowboy only to learn of his secret homosexuality. The movie and their performances were steeped in heartbreak, earning both Williams and Ledger deserved critics' citations and Academy Award nominations. Between takes, however, they fell happily in love, subsequently announcing their engagement and the birth of daughter Matilda Rose Ledger, born in October, 2005.

ANNETTE BENING & WARREN BEATTY


Annette Bening was a serious stage actress whose drop-dead beauty marked her for romantic leads when she was cast opposite Warren Beatty in 1991's "Bugsy," a noir drama about mobster Bugsy Siegel. Beatty, of course, was by then a renowned Hollywood Lothario whose romantic exploits tended to overshadow his formidable achievements as an actor, producer, director and writer. When the pair revealed the affair that had begun on the set, did anyone think the union would last? Like Bogart and Bacall before them, Bening and Beatty tapped into an immediate chemistry that belied their age difference and now preside over a family including four children, Kathlyn, Benjamin, Isabel and Ella.

TONY CURTIS & JANET LEIGH


Bronx native Bernard Schwartz cashed in his dark good looks to win a contract with Universal Pictures, which tutored him in fencing and horse riding and changed his name to Tony Curtis. Meanwhile, over at MGM, a Merced, Calif., native named Jeanette Morrison was similarly groomed into a shapely starlet christened Janet Leigh by the studio's talent handlers. When the two stars-in-training wed in 1951, their marriage was manna to publicists, with the births of daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee and a series of on-screen pairings adding to their image of glamorous domesticity. But Curtis, an admitted womanizer, abandoned Leigh in 1962 to marry a teenaged co-star, Austrian starlet Christine Kaufmann. Leigh passed away in 2004. Curtis and Leigh are seen here in still from 1953's "Houdini."

SUSAN SARANDON & TIM ROBBINS


Meeting on the set of "Bull Durham," Susan Sarandon was cast as the older woman who each year dallies with a rookie ball player while Tim Robbins played the dim hunk who was her latest romantic catch. In the script, Robbins lost his lover to Kevin Costner, but when the 1988 hit comedy's production wrapped, Robbins and Sarandon were more than an item. Though they've never wed, the couple have remained together in New York, where they have raised sons Jack (born in 1989) and Miles (born in 1992) and continued to juggle film and stage work with social activism.

ASHTON KUTCHER & DEMI MOORE


Their 16-year age difference has prompted baby-faced Ashton Kutcher and sultry Demi Moore to spoof their May-December relationship in a 2005 "Saturday Night Live" skit that featured a wizened, geriatric Moore hobbling to the stage to coddle the youthful actor. That same year, Kutcher and Moore formalized their union in a kabbalah-themed wedding ceremony attended by Moore's ex-husband, Bruce Willis, and their three daughters, suggesting an extended family that has successfully dodged the acrimony too often associated with divorce.

SPENCER TRACY & KATHARINE HEPBURN


In today's tabloid-fevered climate, the discreet devotion that bound golden age stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn suggests a propriety from a lost era. Cast opposite each other for the classic 1942 comedy, "Woman of the Year," the earthy Midwestern actor and his patrician New England co-star fell in love even as they forged an onscreen chemistry that would fuel nine features together. But Tracy, while estranged from wife Louise, was a practicing Roman Catholic and never divorced her. Instead, Tracy and Hepburn hid in plain sight, maintaining separate homes. Tracy died 17 days after completing their final film together, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." As the Daily Telegraph noted in its 2003 obituary for Hepburn, "Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were at their most seductive when their verbal fencing was sharpest." The couple is seen here in 1957's "Desk Set."

SARAH JESSICA PARKER & MATTHEW BRODERICK


What could Ferris Bueller and Carrie Bradshaw have in common? For the actors that made them pop cultural icons, the answer may be an address: Broadway. Ohio-born Parker moved to New York after her child acting career took her to Broadway, where early roles included a run in "Annie," in which she graduated into the title role. Broderick, son of actor James Broderick, was a native New Yorker who caught the acting bug in high school and notched his first stage successes in his early 20s The couple met in the late '90s, married in 1997 and welcomed their first child, son James Wilke, in 2002.

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Angel

GOLDIE HAWN & KURT RUSSELL


She was giggling her way from "Laugh-In" to feature films and he was a juvenile actor contracted to Walt Disney, when Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell first met on the set of an otherwise forgettable big screen family musical, "The One, and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band" in 1968. Both went on to separate careers and marital partners, but when they were cast opposite each other in 1983's "Swing Shift," their scripted romance led to the real thing. The couple have never exchanged vows, but they've remained together ever since, helming a family that includes son Wyatt. Hawn's daughter from her previous marriage, Kate Hudson, has proudly claimed she regards Kurt as a true father, and the blended clan's close-knit relationships have endeared them to friends and fans.

JOE DiMAGGIO & MARILYN MONROE


"Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio was a newly retired baseball legend when he went on a blind date in 1952 with a young blonde actress whose career was just taking off. Marilyn Monroe would later claim she didn't want to meet a stereotypical jock, but the seeming opposites clearly were attracted and their courtship and subsequent elopement in 1954 grabbed headlines. For all their glamour, DiMaggio and Monroe were a tempestuous pair whose passion was laced with friction and arguably sabotaged by his jealousy and her career ambitions. They divorced after 274 days, but the Yankee legend was said to remain deeply in love with his ex-wife throughout her life: It was DiMaggio that helped Monroe gain release from the Paine Whitney Clinic's psychiatric ward in 1961, as her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller ended. DiMaggio reportedly was planning to propose again when Monroe died as an apparent suicide in August, 1962. He would have roses delivered to her crypt for the next 20 years.

HEIDI KLUM & SEAL


If chivalry's dead, somebody forgot to mention it to Seal, the towering British soul rocker who struck romantic nerves on such signature hits as "Kiss From a Rose." When he began dating German supermodel Heidi Klum in 2004, he eagerly took on added daddy duties for her infant daughter Leni, from her earlier relationship with Italian businessman Flavio Briatore. During a romantic year-end holiday getaway in Whistler, B. C., Seal flew Klum by helicopter to a secluded mountain top and popped the question, with the couple announcing their engagement a week later on Jan. 4, 2005. They wed that May, with their first child together, son Henry, arriving in September, followed 14 months later by the birth of second son Johan.

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES & MICHAEL DOUGLAS


Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones catapulted to international stardom with her 1998 role as Antonio Banderas' love interest in "The Mask of Zorro," first in a string of major Hollywood assignments culminating in her 2002 Oscar for "Chicago." If studio suits clearly admire her for her versatility as an actress, singer and dancer, one major producer has clearly taken a more personal interest: Michael Douglas, a second generation leading man who's been as successful behind the scenes as in front of the camera, tied the knot with Zeta-Jones after divorcing his previous wife, Diandra, in 2000, four months after Zeta-Jones gave birth to their son, Dylan Michael. Douglas and Zeta-Jones welcomed daughter Carys Zeta in April, 2003. Once a known womanizer, Douglas appears to have set a new course in his midlife marriage: In recent years, he's become a stern critic of other celebs who divorced, including Julia Roberts, Renée Zellweger and Brad Pitt, although he's since claimed his digs at Pitt were misquoted.

TEA LEONI & DAVID DUCHOVNY


It's not hard to imagine an internet dating service pairing actors Tea Leoni and David Duchovny for their shared traits. Both are native New Yorkers with privileged backgrounds, both attended private secondary schools (Brearley School and Putney for her, Collegiate for him), and both earned sheepskins at top private colleges (Sarah Lawrence, Princeton) before embarking on acting careers. Leoni achieved TV stardom with "The Naked Truth," while her future hubby’s small-screen impact reached iconic dimensions on "The X-Files." Onscreen and off, both celebrities appear sexy, smart and funny. Wed in 1997, Leoni and Duchovny have two kids, daughter Madeleine (born in 1999) and son Kyd (born in 2002).

CLARK GABLE & CAROLE LOMBARD


During the "golden age" of the Hollywood studio system, no stars shined brighter than Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. The Oscar-winning actor was at the peak of his critical and box office appeal when he married Lombard (with whom he had conducted a discreet affair for several years) in 1939, the same year that Gable starred in "Gone With the Wind." He claimed his marriage to the beautiful comedienne was a personal high point, and the couple settled into an unpretentious home life on a San Fernando Valley ranch where they called each other "Pa" and "Ma." But their idyll was tragically cut short when Lombard, returning from a war bond rally in the early weeks of World War II, was killed in a plane crash near Las Vegas and cited as the first female casualty of the war by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A devastated Gable joined the Army Air Corps to fly combat missions, and while he would remarry twice, the rugged actor would consider Lombard the love of his life, stipulating that he be buried alongside her grave in Glendale, Calif.

AVA GARDNER & FRANK SINATRA


As star-crossed stars go, few couples could surpass Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra for interpersonal fireworks. One of Hollywood's most seductive stars, Gardner was a North Carolina native whose sultry SPAMSPAMSPAM appeal had led to two marriages (with Mickey Rooney, and then band leader Artie Shaw) and a notorious pursuit (by mogul Howard Hughes, whom she refused) before she became involved with crooner Sinatra. When he left his wife to marry Gardner in 1951, he was vilified by gossip columnists for deserting his marriage to wed the actress. His movie contract with MGM was also coming to an end, adding to the sense that Sinatra's star was falling as his wife's ascended. Passionate fights, separations and reconciliations marked their combustible union, and although Gardner was reportedly instrumental in landing Sinatra his breakthrough dramatic role in 1953's "From Here to Eternity," which earned him a supporting actor Oscar and reversed his career fortunes, the couple parted ways soon after. That dark period also suggests that Gardner may have unwittingly helped Sinatra's musical comeback as well: Signing with Capitol Records, he recorded a classic album, "In the Wee Small Hours," that was a de facto concept album about romantic loss, far darker than his earlier hits and haunted by heartbreak. They finally divorced in 1957. Gardner died in 1990 and Sinatra passed away in 1998.

WILL SMITH & JADA PINKETT SMITH


The former "Fresh Prince" had graduated to major movie star and ended his three-year marriage to first wife Sharee Zampino when he met, and then married, Jada Pinkett, tying the knot in 1997. The second Mrs. Smith was then basking in her own big screen arrival with "The Nutty Professor," which punctuated her transition from smaller TV and film roles to prominence. Son Jaden (who co-starred with his father in 2006’s inspirational "The Pursuit of Happyness") was born in 1998, followed by daughter Willow in 2000. Will Smith has continued to broaden his audience as a top male box office draw, while Jada Pinkett Smith has mixed her continued screen acting work (including two of the "Matrix" trilogy features and "Madagascar") with directorial assignments for music videos and gigs with her alternative band, Wicked Wisdom.

(Craig Barritt/Retna Ltd.)

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Angel