25 of the Greatest Entertainment Love Stories

Tracy and Hepburn were Hollywood’s “it’ couple for decades. They are both among filmdom’s most honored actors, with both winning multiple Academy Awards. Their onscreen chemistry morphed into an offscreen relationship, complicated by the fact that Tracy was married and because of his Catholic faith, would not divorce his wife. The Tracy-Hepburn pairing ended with his passing in 1967.

Burton and Taylor fell in love during the filming of “Cleopatra” in 1963 even though Burton was married to Sybil Williams and Taylor was married to Eddie Fisher (whom she had poached from actress and friend Debbie Reynolds) at the time. Burton and Taylor married in 1964. Two years later, the two starred as a couple embroiled in alcohol-fueled arguments in the film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Their real-life marriage lasted until 1974. They married again in 1975 and divorced the following year.

Leigh and Olivier, two of the 20th century’s acting luminaries, met when Olivier saw her in a play in 1935. The two, who were married to other people at the time, fell in love and began an affair. They eventually divorced their partners and were married in 1940. Tension in the marriage arose with the onset of Leigh’s mental illness and Olivier’s stardom, and they divorced in 1960.

John Travolta and Kelly Preston connected while filming “The Experts” in 1989 and they were married in 1991. They had three children, one of whom, Jett, died in a tragic accident in 2008. More tragedy would follow. After 29 years of marriage. Preston would lose her two-year battle with breast cancer in 2020.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are one of Hollywood’s great love stories. They met while appearing on the New York stage in the early 1950s. They appeared together in the movie “The Long, Hot Summer” in 1957 and began a discreet affair. Newman got a divorce and he and Woodward were married in 1958. They remained in love the rest of their lives, with Woodward supporting Newman’s burgeoning film career and raising their children. They lived a quiet life in Connecticut before Newman died in 2008.

Warren Beatty was one of Hollywood’s infamous “players,” tomcatting around the town for decades. Then he met Annette Bening in 1990. The two filmed “Bugsy” in 1991 and were married a year later. Beatty and Bening shared screen time in four movies and in 2016 worked together on the Howard Hughes biopic “Rules Don’t Apply” — he as director and writer and she appeared in the film itself.

Russell and Hawn first met on the set of the Disney film “The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band” and became reacquainted in 1983 when they appeared in the movie “Swing Shift.” They became a couple that year. They have refused to actually get married, even though they’ve been together longer than most married folks. Hawn told People magazine in 2020 about their decision not to wed, “It’s not about the marriage. It’s about the people and the relationship, and the will to stay together.”

Rock stars and models as couples is nothing unusual, but that combination took on a different dimension with the pairing of rock ‘n’ roll chameleon David Bowie and supermodel Iman. They were introduced at a dinner party in 1990 after Iman had retired from modeling. The “thin white dude” was smitten. Bowie clinched their relationship by meeting her plane in Los Angeles, flowers clenched in hand, with paparazzi gathered about. They lived a quiet life, mostly in New York, until he died in 2016.

Fox and Pollan met on the set of the sitcom “Family Ties” in 1985. The two were in other relationships at the time but were single when they were reunited on the set of the film “Bright Lights, Big City” two years later and started dating. They were married a year later and began having children in 1989. Fox was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991 and went public about his condition seven years later. Pollan has never wavered in her support of Fox.

From the golden era of Hollywood is the love story of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Gable first met Lombard while filming “No Man of Her Own” in 1932. Lombard reported no spark then, — both were married to other people at the time — but that changed four years later when they met at a Hollywood party. Gable finalized his divorce in 1938 and they went public with their relationship. In 1939, during a break in filming “Gone With the Wind,” they eloped. Their marriage would be tumultuous with accusations of infidelity and it would only last three years. Lombard was killed in a plane crash in 1942 while raising money for war bonds.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are another couple giving their relationship another try. The two first met while filming the movie “Gigl” in 2002. Romance followed and they became engaged, but they postponed nuptials in 2003 because of what they called “excessive media attention.” The following January, they called off their engagement. In the years that followed, they both married other people, got divorced, and became involved with other people in relationships that didn’t work out. Affleck and Lopez were reunited in 2021 and eloped in 2022.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are two members of country music royalty who have been married for 27 years. They first met during a performance in Nashville in 1994, but were seeing other people at the time. Two years later, they reconnected during McGraw’s Spontaneous Combustion tour and got married later that year. They also are a couple professionally; Hill and McGraw have recorded 11 duets since 1997.

Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar met in 1997 while acting in the screamfest “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Two didn’t become an item until 2000. A year later, the star of “She’s All That” proposed to Gellar (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and they were married in 2002 in Mexico.

Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow met at an audition for “The Cable Guy,” the comedy/drama starring Jim Carrey, in 1995 and were married two years later. Besides a role in the comedy “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Mann has also appeared with her daughters Maude and Iris in the motion pictures “Knocked Up” and “This is 40.”

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard started dating in 2007 after meeting at a birthday party of a mutual friend, five years before they starred in the comedy “Hit and Run.” They believed so strongly in gay marriage that they refused to tie the knot until same-sex marriage was legal in California. They got married in 2013.

Pauletta Pearson and two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington have one of the longer relationships on our list. They met in 1977 while shooting the TV movie “Wilma,” his first acting job. They began dating the following year and finally got married in 1983. They have four children.

Emily Blunt, one of the busier actresses in the film industry (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “The Young Victoria,” and “The Girl on the Train”), met actor John Krasinski (“The Office”) via a mutual friend in 2008. A year later, he proposed to her and they were married in 2010. Offscreen, they are raising two children and have appeared together onscreen in the thriller “A Quiet Place.”

Ellen DeGeneres famously and bravely came out in 1997, as the title character on her TV show “Ellen” and in real life. Four years later, she met Portia de Rossi, and the two became a couple. In 2008, after gay marriage became legal in California, the two officially tied the knot, and have been together ever since.

Lauren Bacall may have been 19 when she met 45-year-old Humphrey Bogart on the set of “To Have and Have Not” in 1944 but the percolating chemistry between the two actors made the age difference vanish. The role as Bogart’s lover in the film vaulted Bacall to stardom and she and Bogart became offscreen lovers. They eventually married in 1945. They appeared together in such cinema classics as “The Big Sleep,” “Dark Passage,” and “Key Largo.”

Entertainment/business power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z met in 2000 when the 18-year-old singer met the groundbreaking rapper and music impresario. They started dating in 2001 and secretly wed in 2008. They’ve raised three children while managing their soaring careers.

The parlor game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” postulates that anyone in the movie realm can be connected to actor Kevin Bacon within six links. Based on that premise, Kyra Sedgwick is separated by one link. The two have shared their lives and their careers since 1987. Sedgwick and Bacon got married in 1988 after appearing in the movie “Lemon Sky,” and have been on screen together in “Murder In the First,” “The Closer,” and “Cavedweller,” among other films.

Television viewers know Mariska Hargitay as detective Olivia Margaret Benson on the crime drama “Law and Order: SUV.” It was on the set of that series that she met future husband Peter Hermann, who guest-starred in the third season of the long-running show in 2001. They started dating shortly afterward and were married in 2004.

Rock stars are notorious from going from relationship to relationship Paul McCartney was not one of them. McCartney met photographer Linda Eastman at a party in London to celebrate the completion of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Their relationship would take off the following year and they were married in 1969. Eastman would be a part of McCartney’s band Wings and was his constant companion until her death from breast cancer in 1998.

Will Smith delighted television audiences as the Philadelphia street kid forced to decamp to California in the TV sit-com “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” It was during auditions for that eventual hit show that Smith met Pinkett in 1994 and they were married three years later. Pinkett played Smith’s onscreen wife in the biopic “Ali” in 2001. Smith caused a row at the Academy Awards in 2022 when award presenter Chris Rock made untoward comments about Pinkett’s appearance and Smith, who won the Best Actor Oscar later that evening, went onstage and slapped him.

Hanks and Wilson first met in 1981 while shooting the TV sit-com “Bosom Buddies” but they couldn’t become even closer buddies at the time because he was married. The attraction became more apparent in 1985 when they appeared in the film “Volunteers.” By 1987 he was separated and America’s Everyman started a relationship with Wilson. They were married a year later and have two children. It hasn’t been the easiest of matrimonial journeys as they’ve dealt with health issues, including Wilson’s battle with breast cancer.