I’m trying to find Hollywood marriages that haven’t ended in divorce…
According to wikipedia Mel Gibson is still in his 30 year marriage… ???
Any other examples?
Also any guesses as to why it seems their success rate is less than average? Maybe it is because they’re good at being deceptive (that’s what acting is all about). Maybe they expect a Hollywood ending where the feeling of being in love never ends. (though apparently the feeling of love only lasts about 2 years)
also:
Mel Gibson’s wife filed for divorce a year ago.
Tom Hanks is on his second marriage, but he and his wife Rita Wilson have been married for 22 years now, which is pretty good.
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were married for fifty years, until his death in 2008. It was his second marriage also.
Those are the first two I came up with off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are plenty of others.
Jimmy and Gloria Stewart. It was her second marriage, though.
Carl Reiner’s marriage lasted 64 years—that’s not bad.
From what I’ve heard (and I believe it)…
The kind of personality that leads a person to be a movie star is not the kind of personality that leads one to be a good family man/woman.
The life of a movie star is not particularly conducive to a happy and stable home life.
In addition, it’s the ones with tumultuous romantic lives that you hear the most about. Someone who quietly remains married to the same person for life isn’t going to get that much publicity for their personal life.
BTW second marriages don’t count (unless the spouse died) since it means they had a failed marriage.
So only Carl Reiner counts and my example of Mel Gibson doesn’t count…
Those other people can be randomly looked up… but only a small fraction of them have been in a single successful marriage.
Maybe the proportion of successful first marriages is 20% or less.
Monogamy is not natural; movie stars have far more opportunity both to cheat and to be caught cheating, and less consequences in doing so. My take on it anyway.
George Carlin. He married Brenda Hosbrook in 1961 and they were together until her death in 1997. He married Sally Wade in 1998 and they were together until Carlin’s death in 2008.
Tony Randall. He married Florence Gibbs in 1942 and they were together until her death in 1992. He married Heather Harlan in 1995 and they were together until Randall’s death in 2004.
i would not say that a failed first marriage disqualifies someone - they may have wanted to remain married and the other spouse ditched them. what keeps people married is the desire to work out issues, and if the other person just walks out without trying to settle any issues is not a failure of the abandoned spouse … and mrAru is my second marriage, and I consider us successful at 19 years [and 3 years of nonmarriage first]
Try Karl Malden.
If you want the other sideCarol Landis seemed to enjoy a good fucking.
Just looked up some pics of her. Wow!
Sad finale’ to her life, though.
She was a honey. A few years ago (for reasons that are still unclear to me) I joined a Carol Landis fan group. I started to get questionaires about whether I would visit her grave site.
Umm- no, not really.
Meryl Streep has been married for over 30 years. It’s her only marriage.
Landis was an amazingly beautiful woman. I have many of her pics on my hard drive…
Jessica Tandy and Hume Croynin (I’m spelling that wrong) were married something like 50 years. It was her second marriage.
Ann-Margret and Roger Smith have been married since 1967.
Lloyd Bridges had been married to Dorothy for nearly 60 years at the time of his death. Their son Jeff has been married to the same woman since around 1977.
Frances McDormand and Joel Coen have been married for about 25 years.
Christopher Walken has been married to the same woman for decades.
I think any job where a partner travels and stays away from home for months at a time can be hard on marriage.
Add to that, that relationships often spring from working together. The on-set environment is quite different from real life.
What is the rate for succesful first marriages in the US, following your own definition? Based on these boards, not very high.
Jayne Meadows was married to Steve Allen from 1954 until his death in 2000.
Charlton Heston was married to his wife for 64 years - until he died.
Jay Leno has been married to Mavis since 1980 and still going strong there.
I am sure there are lots more, but they never make the tabloids so it is kind of hard to tell.
I remember reading that for news reporters, it is far harder to find out if a famous person is still alive than determine if they are dead - and I would imagine the same goes for happily married people; if there is nothing in print, kind of hard to research without digging deep into official records.