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WORKING WITH YOUR SPOUSE, HOLLYWOOD-STYLE
By Tom McCurrie
There's a saying that the family that prays together, stays together. Well, there's a Hollywood variation on that: the spouses that work together, make stinkers together. Why? Maybe because once two movie stars get married, the thrill of the chase is kaput, leaving little sexual tension to burn up the screen.
Exhibit #1: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
When Burton and Taylor met making "Cleopatra" (1963), enough romantic sparks flew to power a small city. Even though she was still hitched to Eddie Fisher, Taylor had a torrid affair with the Welsh he-man, and that burst of passion carried over to their onscreen coupling as Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Cut to four years later, when Burton and Taylor starred in "The Comedians" (1967). Having been married since 1964, this supposedly mega-watt star couple came across wan and unconvincing in their love scenes. The Periodic Table at your local high school had more chemistry.
Exhibit #2: Renny Harlin and Geena Davis
Hollywood spouses don't have to both work in front of the camera to mess up a movie. Davis, radiant in her Oscar-winning role as William Hurt's lover in "The Accidental Tourist" (1988) and Harlin, the new King of Action after directing the double-whammy of "Die Hard 2" (1990) and "Cliffhanger" (1993), decided to get married and make movies together. The result was the 100 million-dollar flop "Cutthroat Island" (1995), where Harlin's flat direction gave Davis the sex appeal of a Proctor-Silex toaster. As for Harlin, his career has been in a tailspin ever since -- his most recent opus was "Exorcist: The Beginning" (2004), a movie so atrocious the Devil is suing its makers for defamation of character.
Exhibit #3: Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn
Tracy and Hepburn were amazingly successful at generating romantic sparks in a series of movies from "Woman of the Year" (1942) to "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (1967). The secret to their onscreen sexual chemistry? They never got married. Though Tracy and Hepburn had a passionate off-screen relationship, good Catholic Tracy would never divorce his wife Louise. Because Spence and Kate never officially became spouses, the thrill of the chase was still there, enabling their films to practically bleed sexual tension. Oddly enough, the movie where Tracy and Hepburn set off the most sparks was "Adam's Rib" (1949), a story where they played a married couple!
Now there are exceptions to the Spouses-Make-Bad-Movies Rule. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans got married and came off as one sweet couple on film and TV. But for every Rogers/Evans, there are ten Madonna/Penns making movies as totally charmless as "Shanghai Surprise" (1986).
So what does this short history of Hollywood spouses working together prove? That marriage may be good for the soul, but it's not so good for your movie.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to [email protected].
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews/articles, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive, a story analyst and a screenwriter. He is currently writing a novel about Spaghetti Westerns.
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