Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406040007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By IVOR DAVIS NEW YORK TIMES SPECIAL FEATURES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In the film capital, love and marriage - which, according to Frank Sinatra, used to, ``go together like a horse and carriage'' - now seem to add up to disaster.
Despite the profusion of books on the subject and the proliferation of marriage counselors, couples' therapists and self-help manuals, Hollywood husbands and wives, it seems, haven't learned a thing about being together. Tinseltown marriages are more precarious than ever.
In the past month, more than half a dozen highly publicized star pairings have collapsed - or have been rumored to be disintegrating. Marriage as an institution in Filmland is unraveling faster than the United Nations' efforts to keep peace in Bosnia.
Consider these heavyweight contenders for the marital-disharmony award of the year:
Roseanne and Tom Arnold
Drew Barrymore, the former child star, and Jeremy Thomas, her English husband
Paula Abdul and Emilio Estevez
Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough, her musician husband
Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel
Shannen Doherty and Ashley Hamilton
And that doesn't include the are-they-or-aren't-they? couples:
Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson
Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett
Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere
Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown
The award for the shortest marriage of the year goes to 19-year-old Barrymore, best known for role in ``E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982) and currently starring in ``Bad Girls.''
She wed Thomas, a 31-year-old bar owner, on March 20 after a courtship of just six weeks. She separated from him on April 19 and filed for divorce on May 10. The marriage lasted about as long as her last touch-up on her roots.
By Barrymore's standards, the marriage of Doherty, 23, the infamous wild girl and star of ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' to 19-year-old Hamilton, the son of George Hamilton, lasted an eternity: all of six months.
The couple were wed on Sept. 24, 1993, after a three-week courtship. The first clue that they might not make it to their golden wedding anniversary came when instead of going on a honeymoon, Doherty hosted ``Saturday Night Live,'' performing in sketches that spoofed her quickie nuptials.
Predictably, the laughs had barely died down when the squabbling broke out. She had a volatile temper and he was reportedly still trying to overcome a drug problem.
They were separated on Feb. 23. Stan Rosenfield, Doherty's former publicist, pronounced the union dead and buried, while at the same time hawking the actress' seriousness.
``I know for a fact that she tried very, very hard to make this marriage work,'' he told USA Today. ``She did not take it lightly. While others chose to, she didn't.''
May has also been a lousy month for another famous Hollywood duo: singer Abdul, 31, and actor Estevez, 32. They officially joined the likes of Joel and Brinkley, and Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, on May 10, when, after two years of marriage, Abdul filed for divorce, citing ``irreconcilable differences.''
Despite published reports of Estevez's wandering eye, the couple seemed to be getting along just fine. In mid-April they were photographed hand-in-hand at the Los Angeles airport. But then pfft! Luckily they had always keep separate homes during the marriage - his at Malibu beach, hers in Beverly Hills.
Ending years of rumors, Lisa Marie Presley, the apple of her daddy Elvis' eye, said ``sayonara'' to musician Keough, 29, after five and a half years of marriage.
Presley, 26, has moved with her two children into her mother's mansion in Beverly Hills. It has been reported that Presley was jealous of the groupies who constantly dogged her husband and his band.
But in the quickie-marriage sweepstakes there is only one couple that keeps gossip hounds on their toes week in and week out with their marital woes: Tom and Roseanne Arnold.
Hardly a day goes by without some new twist to their tempestuous yo-yo relationship.
A close second for the on-again-off-again award are Johnson and Griffith. Their first marriage ended in divorce in 1978 after two years. They remarried in 1989 and it seemed like moonlight and roses until out of the blue, Griffith filed for divorce on March 11. Two days later she changed her mind.
Johnson had reportedly fallen off the wagon, but when he promised to go to rehab, Griffith, who has had her own battles with drugs and booze, agreed to call the divorce proceedings off.
What had apparently sent her over the edge was a report of a threatened paternity suit from a woman in Toronto who says she met Johnson while he was making a film in Canada.
It seems that hardly a week goes by without reports of another celebrity marriage going up in smoke.
In April, Joel revealed that he and supermodel Brinkley had been separated since Thanksgiving 1993 but had kept it secret in order to safeguard their 8-year-old daughter, Alexa Ray.
In early May, Gere and his supermodel wife Crawford went to extraordinary lengths to tell the world that they were NOT breaking up, after a slew of relentless rumors that suggested Gere and Crawford were on the brink of parting.
They shelled out $30,000 for a full-page ad in The Times of London to put a stop to the rumors about divorce and other more insidious assertions: ``We remain very married. We both look forward to having a family,'' the ad said. ``We love each other ... [and] are heterosexual and monogamous.''
The tabloids have also been reporting troubles in the marriage of singer-actress Houston and entertainer Brown.
But the most intense spotlight has been fixed on singer Lovett and his ``Pretty Woman'' (1990) leading lady Roberts.
Reports have suggested that the couple, who stunned Hollywood by secretly marrying last year, were going their separate ways.
Lovett, 36, has admitted that his concert schedule and Roberts' hectic film timetable has meant that he has seen little of his beautiful 26-year-old wife since they exchanged marriage vows in June 1993.
A friend of the couple said, ``Julia and Lyle have nothing in common. They decided to marry as a lark. They don't even want to spend time with each other.''
Nancy Seltzer, Roberts' press agent, has tried to shoot down rumors of a breakup, particularly after Roberts was photographed dining and dancing with actor Ethan Hawke recently.
The meeting, the publicist insisted, was strictly business. ``Since when is it a crime to dance with someone who isn't your husband?''
Recently, both Michael Douglas and Kevin Costner have admitted to trying to patch up their rocky marriages by simply devoting more time and attention to their wives and families than to their careers. And in both cases it seems to be working.
Ivor Davis is a Hollywood-based reporter.
by CNB