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Together Again
Stars linked forever by silver screen are rarer than you might think
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Published: January 8, 2009
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No matter how many times Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a mob movie or Kate Winslet appears in a low-budget art film, they are inexorably linked because of the success of "Titanic."
You can see them right now, can't you, on the bow of the great ship while Celine Dion sings that song? Of course you can.
This weekend, 11 years after "Titanic" became the biggest movie of all time, they are reunited onscreen for "Revolutionary Road," a movie about a young couple living in the suburbs in the 1950s (see review, opposite page). It won't be the box office smash "Titanic" was — it won't even beat out "Bride Wars" to top the box office this weekend — but there's already quite a bit of buzz over the performances of the two stars.
Some stars are marketed as couples. Laurel and Hardy, for example, or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Some have off-screen romances that make them famous together, such as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. DiCaprio and Winslet, however, had the benefit of neither. They simply were in a really good, and hugely successful, movie together, and created moments that transcend their individual careers.
Such linkage is rarer than you might think. It requires two stars creating something so memorable while working together that you usually think of one when you think of the other. For example, if Brad Pitt and George Clooney find themselves together in another really good movie that is not related to 'Ocean's 11" but is bigger than "Burn After Reading," they might make this list. So might Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson if they star opposite one another in a big comedy.
We managed to come up with a half-dozen pairings for this list of "forever linked" Hollywood stars. There are more, but we're sure you'll let us know.
Paul Newman and Robert Redford
The link: It's amazing, but they made only two movies together. Two! But if you look down the list of movies for either actor, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "The Sting" (1973) have to be in the Top 5. That has something to do with their star power, as well as the skill of George Roy Hill, who directed both movies.
Rent: "The Sting." 'Butch" is a great movie, but "The Sting" has the better plot and supporting cast.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan
The link: They started inauspiciously in "Joe Versus The Volcano" (1990). But "Sleepless In Seattle" (1993) and "You've Got Mail" (1998), both written and directed by Nora Ephron, are the standard by which modern-day romantic comedies are measured. Both make something that is difficult look easy. Hanks went on to become an Oscar-winning machine, but Ryan deserves more credit for her comic chops and physical comedy. Look at it this way: If what she did was so easy, than why has no one really replaced her as the Romantic Comedy Queen? It ain't easy, that's why.
Rent: "Sleepless in Seattle," and get a laugh out of knowing that Bill Pullman, just a few years later, will play a tough president who battles aliens in "Independence Day."
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau
The link: Sure, it got a bit out of control in the mid- to late-1990s, when they made "Grumpier Old Men" (1995) and "Out to Sea" (1997) together, but they are flat out brilliant in "The Odd Couple" (1968) and are the gold standard of grumpy old men in, ah, "Grumpy Old Men."
Rent: "The Odd Couple," and find out where we got one of the lines we often use around the office: "Now, it's garbage."
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn
The link: If I may be confessional for one sentence, I have to admit I usually think of Cary Grant when I think of Kate Hepburn, because of "Bringing Up Baby" and "The Philadelphia Story." Apparently the rest of the world does not see it this way. Tracy and Hepburn made a series of great movies, from the serious ("Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" in 1968) to the comedic ("Adam's Rib" in 1949, directed by the great Geoge Cukor). They were eventually marketed as a couple (and they had a romance off screen), but it all started because of their strong performances.
Rent: "Desk Set," a light romantic comedy from 1957 written by Henry and Phoebe Ephron, who are Nora's parents.
Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh
The link: "Gone With The Wind" (1939) is the "Titanic" of its day, except better. Although the two actors, especially Gable, went on to do many other things, they are forever linked together in the minds of movie fans as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara — the loveable rogue and the sexy Southern belle. Unlike DiCaprio and Winslet, they never appeared together again.
Rent: "Gone With The Wind," because it's your only choice. Plus, everyone who calls themselves a movie fan should see this at least once.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
The link: Like Bogie and Bacall, the off-screen romance had a great deal to do with the link between these two. However, Burton and Taylor were fantastic together over a long string of movies, including a great version of "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967) and the big-budget period piece, "Cleopatra" (1963). Still, they might not even be on this list if it wasn't for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" (1966), an extremely difficult movie to watch, in which the two basically play themselves — a couple ravaged by anger, mutual disgust and years of alcohol abuse. They are amazing performances and cemented these two together forever.
Rent: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," directed by Mike Nichols, who directed "The Graduate" a year later.
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