A-List: Offscreen Couples
By Josh Spiegel
September 2, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Yeah, I can’t admit to having much interest in Going the Distance, partly because real-life emotions don’t often emanate from Barrymore, an actress who has, wisely or not, capitalized on seeming like a flighty, flaky young girl over the past decade or so. Either way, the film brings up the topic of some famous real-life romantic couples who met onscreen to varying results. Two of the couples on this week’s list are among the most iconic couples to ever grace Hollywood. One is wildly popular and unavoidable, and the others are responsible for two of the biggest box-office bombs ever. Whatever the case, they are among the most notable on- and off-screen couples in movie memory. I highly doubt that Barrymore and Long will ever reach these heights, positive or negative. Still, any excuse to reflect on some classic pairings is good enough for me. On with the list.
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn
In some ways, the best Hollywood couples came and went years before you or I were born. My pick for the best offscreen couple that brought their chemistry to the big screen is Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tracy and Hepburn starred in nine films together over nearly 30 years. They were best known for their romantic roles in comedies during the 1940s. These films include Woman of the Year, Without Love, and Keeper of the Flame, but their best known collaboration was in Adam’s Rib, a romantic comedy in the world of law. Tracy and Hepburn worked best because they managed to bicker like an old married couple while having the sexual chemistry of honeymooners. Offscreen, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn managed to do something few big-name couples can do: never, ever talk about their relationship.
We see this all the time, right? The actor or actress who just doesn’t want to talk about his or her personal life. Some actors, of course, are able to guard their privacy seriously; all deserve to have their privacy respected, even if some don’t care. Tracy and Hepburn were both fiercely protective of having some semblance of a real life outside of the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and were able to succeed. Most people in the industry knew what was going on, but they didn’t spoil the surprise to people. Of course, no one needed to know; watch their movies and you can see for yourself what real chemistry is like, on or off the set. In some ways, they’re the iconic bickering married couple, but able to stoke more intimate fires after they end their bickering. Tracy and Hepburn are the ideal, the bar no one’s topped yet.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
If there is a star couple of the 21st century, it has to be Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Though these two have only been together since the midpoint of the last decade, while they were filming the bland yet popular spy comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jolie and Pitt have caught the attention of the entire world. What is it about Brangelina, a name that makes me gag when I use it, that attracts us so? Well, first of all, they’re beautiful. They’re so, so beautiful; they’re more beautiful than you and I will ever be. I know it’s painful, but get over it. They are pretty, and thus, we look at them. As we like shiny things, we like pretty things. Pitt and Jolie had been big stars even before they got together, but their pairing has set the world afire.
As you may have presumed, I wouldn’t say the same about their big film together, Mr. & Mrs. Smith. On the one (shallow) hand, Jolie has never looked more beautiful than in the film - these days, she looks too thin to be truly beautiful, but your mileage may vary. On the other hand, the movie is another variation on the tired gag of marriage stereotypes being used in less expected genres, like spy films. Pitt and Jolie aren’t able to show a lot of chemistry; physically, of course, they match perfectly. But since their relationship is meant to be so frigid for so long, there’s no warmth in their byplay, even when they’ve reunited. These days, what Jolie and Pitt are known for is their humanitarian work and the many, many children they’ve adopted and had naturally. Still, no list about offscreen star couples is full without these two.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez
Do you remember when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were the original combined-name couple? Remember Bennifer? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? Who wants to forget them? All of us. In reality, their impact on film is minimal; aside from a notable music video from Lopez, all Affleck and Lopez did on the silver screen is better off forgotten. One of their two movies was Jersey Girl, Kevin Smith’s first unsuccessful foray into making mainstream, less rowdy films. It’s not as bad as some of Smith’s other films (Cop Out remains his worst, and Kevin, in case you’re reading this, I paid to see it, so my opinion is valid), but it’s the weakest effort from the writer/director. What Affleck and Lopez are most known for, of course, is one of the worst mainstream films of recent years: Gigli.
To hear the name should strike fear in your heart, dear reader. As with Cop Out and Jersey Girl, yes, folks, I have seen this movie. Thankfully, I saw it at a press screening to review it for my college paper, but yeah, I saw it. And yeah, it’s that bad. Is it the worst film ever made? Of course not; no movie could be hyped as such and meet the criticism exactly. But it is uniquely terrible, in that it makes any sane person ask why any studio head would greenlight this movie. In some ways, sure, it’s original. In many ways, it’s contrived, it’s hackneyed, and more. What matters is that the pretty, pretty people at the head of the movie have zero chemistry. None. There is no light, no spark, no nothing. Not everyone can have great chemistry, but for a couple that was so famous to seem bored with each other was a bad omen.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
If Gigli is a notable bomb, commercially and critically, then Cleopatra is the king, queen, and emperor of all bombs. The numbers these days don’t sound so shocking of course: Cleopatra, the 1963 historical epic, was made for $44 million and made $26 million. What’s more, it won four Academy Awards. How bad can that be? Well, try to imagine Avatar making, worldwide, something around $200 million as opposed to nearly $3 billion. A lot of advance hype did no favors for Cleopatra, a movie that was plagued with as much negative press as positive. On the one hand, it was bringing together the power couple of the era: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. On the other hand, there was much talk about their relationship constantly being on the rocks.
Though Taylor and Burton would end up getting married after the film was released - though they eventually broke up - the tabloid stories didn’t garner enough interest among audiences across the country. Cleopatra is known today as much as Gigli is for being a flop, but as I mentioned above, movies have flopped harder and more dramatically. The difference here is that, unlike some recent big-budget films like Titanic or Avatar, the film failed. Those latter films succeeded, beyond everyone’s expectations. Cleopatra, partly because it was so long, so bloated, had so many reshoots and rewrites, and had so much turmoil between the lead couple that didn’t translate to the big screen, wasn’t so lucky. Taylor and Burton reunited onscreen a few years later with a much more successful film about a couple: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Turned out people wanted the turmoil more than sexual chemistry.
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
May-December romances aren’t as shocking as we might think. When we get inflamed at older men romancing younger women, most people get incensed and angry. Though everyone’s pretty much accepted it by now, when Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones publicly got involved in a relationship, it was relatively scandalous. There’s a 30-year age difference between the two of them, even if Douglas has always managed to play and look a lot younger than he is (he’s 65 and only with the sad news that he’s got throat cancer did he ever look close to his age). Now, with over a decade passing since their relationship began, Douglas and Zeta-Jones are accepted. But for the original May-December romance in Hollywood, look no further than Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Bogie and Bacall starred in a few films together; most notable were The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not.
Bogie and Bacall met when filming To Have and Have Not; at the time of the film’s release, Bogart was 44 and Bacall was 19. The age difference is roughly the same, but imagine, if you will, a couple of years from now when Hugh Jackman announces that he’s in a relationship with Miley Cyrus. Our jaws will drop, of course, but there would be plenty of hand-wringing (appropriate and otherwise) about the age difference and about how young she is. Bacall managed, even from the tender age of 19, to seem smarter, sexier, and sultrier than a teenager could ever be. Watch her in To Have and Have Not or The Big Sleep, and you’ll think she’s older than her age - what’s more, that wouldn’t be anything close to an insult. Bogart was a charmer, if not a fine specimen of manliness. But you can see what each saw in the other, both on and off the screen.