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50 Great Hollywood Romances: A Personal List

Image courtesy of photos.vanityfair.com

In 2011, a friend watched a TV special on 50 great Hollywood romances. Since I unfortunately missed the special, I googled to find out who were on the on list. The only names that popped up were Taylor and Burton, Bogey and Bacall, Jolie and Pitt. Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks also appeared, though no scandal has ever been associated with them nor are they tabloid material. I decided to compile my own list of who the remaining 46 might have been.

  1. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn
  2. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner
  3. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard
  4. Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth

    Image courtesy of www.smh.com.au

  5. Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller (as opposed to Joe DiMaggio. Aside from being a playwright, Miller also wrote screenplays, his most famous being that for “The Misfits.” It was during the filming of “The Misfits” that his marriage to Monroe experienced the last stages of its dissolution.)
  6. Greta Garbo and John Gilbert
  7. Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst
  8. Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal (They fell in love during the filming of “Fountainhead.” Cooper refused to leave his wife. He got Neal pregnant and he forced her to have an abortion.)
  9. Cary Grant and Sophia Loren (They fell in love during the filming of “Houseboat.” The climactic scene was a wedding, and Grant proposed that the wedding be a real one between him and Loren. Loren had second thoughts, so the marriage was staged. At the end of the filming, she broke off her relationship with Grant. He implored her for months to come back, but she told him that she had fallen in love with Carlo Ponti and was going to marry Ponti.)

  10. Image courtesy of s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com

    Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer

  11. Jennifer Jones and David O. Selznick
  12. Grace Kelly and all of her leading men + Oleg Cassini
  13. Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini
  14. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Mary Pickford
  15. Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neil
  16. Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini (Scandalous, this one. Bergman was exiled from Hollywood, for this had originated as an adulterous affair. She was married to Petter Lindstrom. The House Senate lambasted her as an “Angel of Sin.”)
  17. Kim Novak and Sammy Davis, Jr. (They were in love, desperately in love. They wanted to marry. This was racially segregated 1950s America, and the mob-owned Paramount Pictures, for which Novak was a top money-maker, hurled death threats at Novak and Davis should they tie the knot. The mob knew that if their blonde princess married a black man, the public would no longer endorse her pictures and Paramount would fall into financial troubles.)
  18. Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman (Not a good marriage. It lasted 30 days. In her autobiography, Merman dedicated one chapter to her ex. It was a blank page.)

    Image courtesy of i.dailymail.co.uk

  19. Sean Penn and Madonna
  20. Bo Derek and John Derek
  21. Robin Givens and Mike Tyson
  22. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
  23. Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini (Yes, they were married in the late 1970s, before she became a sensation in the 1980s as the face of Lancome.)
  24. Burt Reynolds and Lonnie Anderson
  25. Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields

  26. Image courtesy of pinimg.com

    Cybill Shepherd and Peter Bogdanovich

  27. Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate
  28. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz
  29. Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
  30. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem
  31. Courtney Cox and David Arquette
  32. Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart
  33. Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardot
  34. Roger Vadim and Catherine Deneuve
  35. Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda
  36. Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner
  37. James Dean and Pier Angeli
  38. Woody Allen and Mia Farrow
  39. Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn
  40. Jack Nicholson and Angelica Huston
  41. Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neil
  42. Warren Beatty and Annette Benning, Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood, Julie Christie, Leslie Caron, Joan Collins, Michelle Philips, Diane Cannon, Cher, Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Onassis, Twiggy, Elle McPherson, Isabel Adjani, Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, etc., etc., etc.
  43. Ellen Degeneres and Porsche de Rossi
  44. Rudolph Valentino and Ramon Novarro
  45. Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford
  46. Bert and Ernie

Add the fab four to my list: Taylor and Burton; Bogey and Bacall; Jolie and Pitt; Wilson and Hanks.

Total: 50 Great Hollywood Romances

Who would be your choices?

Image courtesy of akamaized.net

 

I was born and raised in Manila, but I've also lived in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Boston, and New York. I have a background in literature and creative writing, so I've got an active imagination. Like all highly imaginative and creative people, I have a deep appreciation for the whole spectrum of films from the silents to the indies; museums; live theater; and novels, my favorite subject being those that explore human relationships of every nature. I do not have a palette for pesto and garlic, but I do for sushi and jalapeño. My favorite color is green because it is the color of blooming leaves and traffic lights that signal go. I ask questions about the person with whom I am engaged in conversation more so than I talk about myself. And while the mysteries of the deep sea are daunting to me, soft waves and sun-dappled ripples instill me with serenity.

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