Anyone who keeps up with the personal lives of the Hollywood elite knows that unlike the movies that actors star in, getting married is not a guarantee at a happy ending. With all the publicity that scandals receive, it seems as if actors and actresses marry and divorce like middle schoolers date (finding someone new each week).
Even more intriguing, however, are the actors who were married before entering this lifestyle, or at least before reaching the height of their popularity. How would one handle a marriage and the immersion into Hollywood’s vastly different lifestyle?
Well we’ve compiled a list for you that shows you both sides of the story: the good, the bad, and the ugly of Hollywood marriages.
Some actors and actresses have been with their original spouse from the beginning, spanning 30, 40, and even 50 years of marriage. Others… well, others have been lucky to make it last more than a few months.
Whether it was a chance encounter at the dentist or two actors trying to catch their big break, these couples all wound up tying the knot before their fame. However, it’s what happened after the marriage that sets these couples apart, for a variety of reasons - some good and some bad.
With that said, here are the 8 Actors Who Stayed With Their Normal Spouses After Becoming Famous (And 7 Who Left Them).
Stayed: Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep holds the distinct honor of being the most nominated actor or actress of all time at the Academy Awards. She’s been nominated 21 times (most recently this year for The Post), and is one of only six actors to have won three Oscars.
Streep has almost always been in the spotlight, gaining her first Oscar nomination in only her second movie, The Deer Hunter in 1978, having been personally sought out for the role by Robert De Niro.
She married sculptor Don Gummer in 1978. The marriage was born out of tragic circumstances: Streep had lost her love and companion John Cazale to lung cancer earlier that same year.
However, the two have now been married forty years and have four children: Henry, Mamie, Grace, and Louisa.
Left: Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie has become a household name in the 20 years since she began acting, gaining critical recognition for her roles in the late 1990s until finally becoming a box office superstar with her leading role in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
While many remember “Brangelina” as her defining relationship, less remember that she has in fact been married three times– originally to Jonny Lee Miller from 1996 to 2000.
The two were married right before Jolie’s breakthrough roles in George Wallace (1997), Gia (1998), and Girl, Interrupted (1999).
These three roles marked three straight years during which Jolie won a Golden Globe for her acting.
While not much is known of her marital strife, perhaps the newly found attention and starring roles proved to be a strain on her prior relationship.
Jolie is at least on good terms with Miller, still calling him a “great friend.”
Stayed: Martin Short
Martin Short’s quirky attitude and lighthearted sense of humor has charmed households for years, beginning with his first role in 1979’s Lost and Found.
However, seven years prior to the movie, Short was in a production of the musical Godspell.
It was during this production that he met his wife, Nancy Dolman. The two dated for quite some time before marrying in 1980.
Sadly, Short’s romantic tale came to an end in 2010. He never left his wife, but she passed away of Ovarian Cancer after 30 years of marriage.
Despite the tragic end of their story, the two had an incredible journey, and have three kids: Katherine, Oliver, and Henry.
Short found a way to move past the loss of his wife, and wanted to show others “how a naturally happy person can get back to that state” after losing a loved one.
Left: Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore never experienced one “boom” of sudden stardom– she starred in movies even as a kid, such as the 1982 classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
However, the strain of growing up famous and continuously gaining starring roles may have played a part in her up-and-down love life.
Barrymore has been married three times, and never for very long. First, there was spouse Jeremy Thomas, who she stayed with from only 1994 to 1995.
A few years later, in 2001, she married Tom Green, once again leaving him after one year. Most recently Barrymore married Will Kopelman in 2012. The pair lasted longer than her prior relationships, but still divorced in 2016.
In addition to the three marriages, Barrymore was actually engaged twice in the ’90s before breaking off the engagements. The constant work schedule of being an actress may have been too hard for sustaining a solid relationship.
Stayed: Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington has become one of the greatest actors of his generation, and the awards speak for themselves: nine Academy Award nominations (most recently this year for Roman J. Israel, Esq.) and two wins for acting don’t happen for just anyone.
It was Washington’s first day on set at his first movie ever, a small 1977 TV film called Wilma, where he met the love of his life, Pauletta Pearson Washington.
Six years later on June 25, 1983, the two married, and are now celebrating 35 happy years of marriage.
The couple also has four children, one of which went on to play UFL football, and another, Olivia, who continued her father’s footsteps in the acting business by playing a role in The Butler in 2013.
Left: Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt has only recently hit the celebrity spotlight, and although the definition of “famous” may vary for him, given his popular role on Parks and Recreation beginning in 2009, many will agree he first became a household name in 2014 and 2015, following his starring roles in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World.
Pratt’s celebrity status continues to rise, starring in recent hits such as Passengers (2016), Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017), and two movies this year, Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Given the recent nature of his rise to fame, fans were heartbroken to learn of his separation from wife Anna Faris last year.
The two had been married for eight years, and have a 5 year old son. “We are sad to announce we are legally separating,” said the two. “We tried hard for a long time, and we’re very disappointed.”
Stayed: Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken’s acting career has spanned over 50 years, starting with his 1968 role in Barefoot in Athens. A year after that first movie gig, he married Georgianne Walken, and has been with her ever since.
Georgianne has had a career of her own, working as a casting director for shows such as The Sopranos and Entourage.
The couple chose to never have children, but they think that was the right decision, since it allowed them both to pursue long and successful careers.
Georgianne says that she has her hands full just with Christopher around the house: “He never tells me what part he’s playing when he’s getting ready. It just descends on me one day. Very interesting. I think that twinkle in his eye is always there, however scary the guy he’s playing.”
Left: Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds’ point of “fame” is another source of debate. His first career breakthrough was back in 2002 with National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, however, it wasn’t until 2009 that his career began to take off with The Proposal and a year later with Green Lantern (yes, Green Lantern, like it or not brought him tons of attention).
While his current marriage to Blake Lively is well known, it can be easy to forget his prior marriage to none other than Scarlett Johansson.
The two dated starting in 2007 and were married in 2o08, but once Reynolds took on more and more roles, the marriage stopped working and led to their divorce in 2011.
Combine that with the fact that he met his future wife Lively working with her on Green Lantern, and it comes as little surprise that the marriage didn’t seem to work out.
Stayed: Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot experienced near-overnight fame, having acted in movies for less than ten years. The year 2009 was a breakthrough for the Israeli actress, landing a role in Fast and Furious, which then led to other movies such as Knight and Day and finally her breathtaking performance as Wonder Woman in DC’s Cinematic Universe.
In 2008, before any of the fame, she married Yaron Versano, who she met in 2006 at a “very strange party in the Israeli desert.”
He let Gadot know how serious he was about her after the second date, and two years later, they were married.
Gadot attributes her marriage’s success to her ability to remember the real priorities.
“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without him,” she says. “Family still has to be the first priority.”
Left: Tom Hanks
It’s hard to find a more likable person than Tom Hanks, and with five Oscar nominations and two wins, it’s hard to find many actors of his caliber either.
Hanks has been married thirty years now to Rita Wilson, but had actually been married long before then. In 1978, Hanks married Samantha Lewes and actually had two children with her: Colin and Elizabeth.
However, the marriage was not meant to be, and the split happened around the same time that Hanks was making a name for himself.
He had started to establish his comedic chops with movies such as Splash and Big in the mid-’80s, but in 1987, he split from Lewes after 9 years of marriage. We guess you could say the Forrest Gump star just hadn’t found his “Jenny” yet.
Stayed: Josh Gad
Josh Gad is perhaps best known as the voice of Olaf in Disney’s 2013 hit Frozen. However, long before Frozen, he married Ida Darvish in 2008 and has stayed with her ever since.
The two have been living happily ever after in the ten years since the wedding, and have doubled in number with two daughters. Ava, the oldest, was born in 2011, while Isabella was born in 2014.
Gad announced the news of the latest birth on Twitter, writing, “well, it’s official. I am a daddy again. And my wife deserves an award for her incredible strength and amazing demeanor.”
Gad seems to have found a happy family and a magical type of love, and it doesn’t seem as if he’s planning to “let it go.”
Left: Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford’s rough-around-the-edges charm and charisma made him one of the most likable action heroes of the 1980s and ’90s. After catching his big break with Star Wars, Ford went on to appear in Apocalypse Now (1979) and star in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Blade Runner (1982) just to name a few.
Ford has been married three times, most recently in 2010, and has five children. However, his first wife, Mary Marquardt, was with him long before his famous cinematic roles.
The pair married in 1964 and had two children before their split in 1979. Perhaps it was coincidental, but it seems likely that Ford’s rising star status at the exact time of the divorce played a major factor in the separation.
Stayed: Mark Rylance
Mark Rylance started dating his would-be wife, Claire van Kampen, in 1987, the same year as his first movie role in Hearts of Fire. The two met on a stage production entitled The Wandering Jew.
For Rylance, it was love at first sight. “I met her on the first day of rehearsal and very much admired her walk,” says Rylance. “I thought I’d follow that walk.”
For van Kampen, things weren’t quite so immediate. “It took me quite awhile to notice him… by about the third month, somebody pointed out that this young man was hanging around the piano rather a lot, and maybe he had other motives than learning his song,” she recalls.
The two were married in 1989, and are now approaching 30 years of marriage. They continue to work on stage shows together, most recently with Farinelli and the King, written by van Kampen and starring Rylance.
Left: Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman (particularly his voice) has become legendary, even to the point of being parodied and having voice emulators. His roles in movies like Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption, and more recently The Dark Knight trilogy and Now You See Me, have gained praise from both critics and audiences alike.
The actor had a relatively late start to the business, not gaining any television acting until he was 34 and not acting in a movie until he was 43 (Brubaker in 1980).
Interestingly enough, the beginning of his career also marked the end of his marriage.
In 1967, Freeman married Jeanette Adair Bradshaw. While not much is known about the relationship, we do know that the couple decided to separate in 1979– the same time as his movie career began. Was the stress of work too hard to keep together the marriage? It’s anyone’s guess.
Stayed: Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill catapulted into the spotlight with Star Wars in 1977, and was married around the same time to Marilou York in 1978.
They had actually met years earlier at a dentist’s office, where Marilou was working as a dental hygienist and Mark was a patient. After dating on and off for a few years, they finally got married and went on to have three children: Nathan, Griffin, and Chelsea.
Mark has now been married to Marilou for forty years and couldn’t be happier. Earlier in February, he wrote that his wife “makes the ordinary seem extraordinary and I just want to thank her for being my everything.”
He had previously mentioned how fortunate he felt to have met Marilou, saying, “I was just lucky I found the right person.” The Force clearly seems to be strong with this couple.
Can you think of any other stars who stayed with their spouses after becoming famous? Can you think of any that left? Let us know in the comments!
