In no particular order, we give you a non-definitive list of some of our favourite most memorable couples to grace the screen…
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind) – oh how these firebrands knew each other so well – how suited they were. Her considerable feminine wiles forcibly succumbing to the masculine power as he sweeps her up and storms up the staircase. Is this the scene responsible for the myth that all women love a bad guy?
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft (The Graduate) – dominatrix she might be but in reality Mrs Robinson was a very vulnerable woman, and Benjamin was adorably awkward. He ended up with the daughter and she ended up with nothing. Just a bit more maturity on your part Benjamin and this could have been a very different story.
Rene Zellwegger and Hugh Grant/Colin Firth (Bridget Jones’s Diary/Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) – talk about extreme choices. Daniel Cleaver was as guilty a pleasure as her cigarettes, chocolate and bottle of chardonnay but it was the comfy jumper wearing Mark Darcy who managed to win everyone’s hearts. And he was the original Mr Darcy, after all.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Titanic) – it was implausible – lowly Irish boy winning a ticket to a new life and winning the heart of a discontented rich girl in the process, and pledging a love so strong that he sacrificed his life for her. Well, it is the stuff of dreams, and there was many a tear for Jack’s cold and watery demise.
Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge) – He a little idealistic lovelorn puppydog, she an indulgent, wise sleek street feline. A short passionate love story with epic consequences, fuelled by covert meetings under the very eyes of Satine’s would-be suitor.
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (Grease) – They overcame the challenges and transformed for each other – he became a ‘letterman’ and distanced himself from his gang, while she sparked up her image with skintight satin and spiked heels. Great songs too along the way, and the fairytale factor as the car glides off into the air…
Shrek and Princess Fiona (Shrek/Shrek 2) – real love transcends all, even for ugly squat green ogres. There’s hope for everyone.
Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) – even one of cinema’s most evil creations has a heart, even if it is destined to have a stake through it. Dracula shows his human side in a most tragic supernatural love story.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (Top Hat) – or in any of their eight movies together, but Top Hat’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’ was romance personified.
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) – geek meets fop and amusingly intellectualises his feelings for her.
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde) – they robbed banks. But they did love each other. A match made in hell.
Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon (Wuthering Heights) – there have been many screen adaptations of the classic Emily Bronte novel but the 1941 verstion, with Laurence Olivier, one of the screens original bad boys, was the definitve portrayal of the wild man of the moors, with Merle Oberon as a suitably mood-swinging Cathy.
Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine (Rebecca) – Laurence Olivier again as the dashing Maxim De Winter. He really was rather quite good at these roles, wasn’t he? The real Colin Firth of his day. Less bad, but maybe as mad as the rugged Heathcliff, and Joan Fontaine as his nameless naïve second wife, in another take on the classic novel by Daphne Du Maurier, as directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra/Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)– the epitome of ‘cannot live together, cannot live apart’, twice-married Burton and Taylor’s fiery relationship spilled out on to the big screen, with most memorable performances as the squabbling couple in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Their romance began grandly on the set of Cleopatra.
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) – come on, they had to be on the list somewhere, didn’t they? The ultimate heart-breaking love affair, but they will always have Paris
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (To Have and Have Not) – a real case of beauty taming the beast, Bacall was still a teenager when they met but her “you know how to whistle don’t you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow” is movie history and made her the object of many a boy’s fantasy.
King Kong and Fay Wray/Naomi Watts (King Kong) – Well, they say opposites attract but this was taking it to extremes, and yet with Peter Jackson’s version particularly, you were still somehow rooting for them.
Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (The Wedding Singer/50 First Dates) – Aw, they’re both so sweet and mawkish – you really do think they’ll have a happy ever after.
Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs) – the ultimate and most impossible dangerous love. Well, more of an understaning than love, but there was definitely a charge there – and remember the way Hannibal gently strokes Clarice’s finger as he passes her the paper… beautiful.
Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story and many more) – lovers in real life, despite having partners, the older pragmatic Tracy and the haughty younger Hepburn were, apparently, devoted to each other, despite the fact that their on screen couplings were full of tit-for-tat banter. But they did usually end up together at the end.
Courtney Cox and David Arquette (Scream 1, 2 and 3) – can you believe that this glamourous doyenne of American sitcom, and the bumbling idiot son of the eccentric Arquette family are happily married? No, neither can we but we raise our glasses to them. They don’t take themselves seriously and seem to enjoy each other’s company, and it showed in the Scream trilogy, on which they met.
Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn (The Break Up) – They seem a lot more relaxed together and if his films as part of the frat pack are anything to go by, this relationship should be a lot more fun than Jen’s previous one. Glad she’s done with the pretty boys and found herself a real man.
Tom Cruise and Renee Zellwegger (Jerry Maguire) – She completed him, he had her at hello.
Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman/The Runaway Bride) – Each time he’s the older, sophisticated cynical man who allows himself to be pulled in by the charms of a woman who really shouldn’t be his type. And each time there’s a happy ending. They were rumoured to be dating offscreen at one point, and it’s clear there’s a chemistry here.
Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli (Arthur/Arthur 2) – he’s a millionaire drunk who hasn’t grown up in more ways than one, she’s a petty thief with a heart-of-gold and plenty of pizazz. Endearing, sentimental and great interplay between the two leads. Given their disasterous real love lives, you can’t help but feel here was an opportunity missed.
Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford (Star Wars) – a relationship acted out by fans first in the playground and then beyond – according to a certain episode of ‘Friends’.
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