Dennis Quaid probably won't watch Proof of Life when it opens Friday December 8, considering the sparks that developed on its set between his future ex-wife, Meg Ryan, and co-star Russell Crowe cost him his marriage, according to FOX news online.
"We often saw them brushing hands and even cuddling," a source on the film told Australia's Sunday Telegraph in June. "It wasn't in the way co-stars normally would, it was obvious they were falling for each other big time."
It's a familiar story for Quaid: He and Ryan met on the set of Innerspace in 1988, though their relationship began after filming ended.
But the jilted actor might find consolation in the knowledge he has plenty of illustrious company among spouses who got the hook in favor of an on-screen paramour. It's also worth noting how few of these made-on-film couples are still together today:
Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were both married to other people when they began filming Cleopatra together in 1963. Within the year the pair had ended two marriages and would later end two consecutive marriages, to each other.
John Malkovich played a scoundrel out to ruin Michelle Pfeiffer in 1988's Dangerous Liaisons. His power of seduction extended to real life, and an affair with Pfeiffer ended his marriage to actress Glenne Headley.
The casting director of 1993's Made in America surely thought the choice of comedienne Whoopi Goldberg and Cheers star Ted Danson, who played an adulterer in 1989's Cousins, would be a comic odd-coupling. But few guessed the two would start a romance that ended Danson's 16-year marriage to Casey Coates. Danson and Goldberg dated for a tumultuous two years, causing another scandal when Danson appeared in blackface at a Friar's Roast dinner (Goldberg's idea).
Julie Cypher was married to actor Lou Diamond Phillips when she took a job as assistant director on a music video for rocker Melissa Etheridge. "Love comes in surprising packages," Cypher has said. Turns out the package was Etheridge, and Cypher divorced Phillips.
She gave birth to two children with Etheridge, fathered by David Crosby, though the two announced earlier this year they are separating.
So far, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith offer some hope for Crowe and Ryan. The two met on the set of 1996's Two Much. The movie wasn't too much, but the co-stars were married the same year and are still strong. Banderas' eight-year marriage to Anna Leza went the way of the movie; for her part, Griffith divorced longtime love Don Johnson for a second time.
Kenneth Branagh created a monster when he directed Helena Bonham Carter in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1994. Carter denied an on-set romance, but Branagh's marriage to actress Emma Thompson conveniently ended the following year, and Branagh began a four-year relationship with Carter.
James Cameron also gravitates toward actresses who take direction well. He ended his marriage to Kathryn Bigelow upon casting Linda Hamilton as his Terminator 2 star and fourth wife. He promptly dumped Hamilton two years later and married Titanic actress Suzy Amis.
Of course, an actor needn't actually have an affair to ruin a marriage: Peter Sellers claimed to have affairs that friends say never happened. In the Scottish Daily Record, Graham Stark, a friend of the actor, says Sellers told his wives (he was married four times) about affairs with Sophia Loren (his co-star in 1960's The Millionairess and Princess Margaret, among others.
Sellers' daughter was quoted as saying, "Dad lived in a kind of fantasy world in which he had affairs with a number of beautiful women. There is no evidence that any took place."
His friend put it more succinctly: "It was all codswallop." – Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
