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Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward
Woody Allen & Diane Keaton
The Couple: As one of Allen’s earliest muses, Diane Keaton comes across as one of the few women to truly have the measure of him. And if their relationship was moderately short-lived, their creative pairing was truly memorable.
Relationship History: The pair began dating in 1970 when Allen cast Keaton in his successful Broadway production Play It Again, Sam . The relationship would last just one year, but the pair remained lifelong friends, with Keaton going on to star in a number of Allen’s films.
Onscreen Chemistry: The part of Annie Hall was written specifically for Keaton (whose given name was Diane Hall) and the film is said to draw heavily on the couple’s brief relationship. The sparky chemistry on display between the two suggests this isn’t hard to believe…
Laurence Olivier & Vivien Leigh
The Couple: Friends, co-stars and eventually husband and wife, the long-running relationship between Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh was as integral to the celebrity of both stars as any of their acting roles, whether it was conducted in secret or finally legitimised in marriage.
Relationship History: Upon meeting, Olivier and Leigh were both married to other people, but an affair soon ignited after the pair played lovers in Fire Over England . Estranged from their respective spouses, the pair began living together in secret before marrying in 1940, with Katherine Hepburn among the witnesses. The relationship lasted 18 years before collapsing in 1958. The couple would finally divorce two years later.
Onscreen Chemistry: The longing and passion evident in Fire Over England serves as a handy signpost as to the way the couple’s relationship was headed…
Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh
The Couple: A classically photogenic Hollywood couple, Curtis and Leigh were Tinseltown royalty during their eleven year marriage. In terms of combined star-power, they certainly take some beating.
Relationship History: Curtis and Leigh were married from 1951 to 1962, and had a pair of kids together, one of whom was Jamie Lee Curtis. “For a while, we were Hollywood's golden couple," he said. "I was very dedicated and devoted to Janet, and on top of my trade, but in her eyes that goldenness started to wear off. I realized that whatever I was, I wasn't enough for Janet. That hurt me a lot and broke my heart.” Don’t feel too sorry for him before you read the next entry on this list…
Onscreen Chemistry: The pair co-starred in five films together, including the pleasingly overblown The Vikings . Curtis was never forced to fight his half-brother to win Leigh’s affections, but we like to think some of the same passion was involved.
Tony Curtis & Marilyn Monroe
The Couple: You couldn’t really describe Curtis and Monroe as a “couple” per se, but according to the former, they did indulge in one particularly scandalous liaison which led to the latter falling pregnant…
Relationship History: According to Curtis’ recent autobiography, the pair enjoyed a secret affair during the making of Some Like It Hot , at which point he was still married to Janet Leigh and she was shacked up with Arthur Miller. The aforementioned pregnancy ended in miscarriage, which is why the scandal never came to light.
Onscreen Chemistry: There’s plenty of sizzle in Some Like It Hot , although the laugh-out-loud chemistry between Curtis and Jack Lemmon is probably more likely to stand the test of time.
Frank Sinatra & Ava Gardner
The Couple: A famously tumultuous relationship, Sinatra and Gardner’s partnership was frequently stormy, although both admitted the other was the love of their lives. He would become her third and final husband, whilst she was the woman who finally curbed his womanising ways. Well, for the duration of the marriage at least…
Relationship History: Sinatra and Gardner were married in 1951, and their six-year union was blighted by a mutual insecurity borne out of the knowledge of each others’ philandering pasts. Still, the pair remained amicable after the inevitable split, and upon her death in 1986, Sinatra was reportedly found by his daughter, weeping and unable to speak.
Onscreen Chemistry: The pair never starred together, presumably because no director wanted to land themselves with the on-set aggro.
Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie
The Couple: Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that Brangelina represent the biggest Hollywood union since the golden days of Hepburn and Tracy, Bogie and Bacall et al. Just don’t tell Jennifer Aniston we said so…
Relationship History: Having met Jolie on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith , Pitt’s five-year marriage to Jennifer Aniston soon broke down, and just one month after the latter filed for divorce, the new couple were papped on the beach together. The pair have had three children together and have adopted a further two, but in a typically right-on stance, they have said they will only marry when all couples in the US are afforded the same right.
Onscreen Chemistry: Anyone who had watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith wouldn’t have needed a crystal ball to work out Brad and Jen’s marriage wasn’t long for this world.
Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn
The Couple: Arguably the most romantic pairing on this list, Hepburn and Tracy starred in no less than nine feature films together, and enjoyed an off-on relationship that lasted from their first collaboration ( Woman Of The Year ) until Tracy’s death in 1967.
Relationship History: Never marrying (on account of Tracy’s Catholic unwillingness to divorce his estranged wife), the couple rarely discussed their off-screen relationship, but Hepburn was so distressed by Tracy’s eventual death that she was famously unable to watch their final film together, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinne r. That should tell you something of the depth of feeling that existed between them.
Onscreen Chemistry: In Woman Of The Year they play a pair of dynamic rival reporters who eventually fall in love with each other, as happened off-screen during the film’s production.
Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor
The Couple: Burton and Taylor’s combustible relationship scandalized Hollywood back in 1963, and remained a reliable headline maker throughout the ensuing decade. Perhaps their chemistry stemmed from Burton’s ability to keep Taylor’s feet on the ground. “(Calling her) the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense,” he famously sneered. “She has wonderful eyes, but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she’s rather short in the leg.” Nice.
Relationship History: Both were married when they began their affair in 1963 (leading the Vatican to condemn the relationship as “erotic vagrancy”) but it wasn’t long before Burton became Taylor’s fifth husband the following year. That marriage lasted ten years before divorce in 1974, and then remarriage the following year. Nine months later the relationship was over for good. As Taylor remarked, “You can't keep clapping a couple of sticks (of dynamite) together without expecting them to blow up.” Indeed.
Onscreen Chemistry: The pair met on the set of Cleopatra , their evident passion for each other firing the relationship between Anthony and Cleopatra. However, it was the explosive union portrayed in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ? that is thought best to represent the couple’s relationship…
Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall
The Couple: Bogart was the Hollywood leading man who had graduated from playing hard-boiled gangsters to hard-boiled heroes, whilst Bacall was the fresh-faced ingénue with the husky voice to top all husky voices…together, they represented old-school Hollywood glamour at its finest.
Relationship History: The pair met on the set of To Have And Have Not , when Bacall was 19 years of age and Bogart 45. Whilst they were clearly attracted to each other from the off, Bogart remained unhappily married for a year until eventually he and Bacall were hitched in 1945. The pair remained married until Bogart’s death in 1957, and would go down as one of the most celebrated couples in Hollywood history.
Onscreen Chemistry: The double-act’s on-screen chemistry hit a high point in The Big Sleep , in which Howard Hawks’ innuendo-heavy script encapsulated their sexual tension perfectly.
