Old time actors and directors that you were surprised to find out were married to each other once upon a time

His first wife Brooke Hayward, Margaret Sullavan's daughter, or so I gather.

You are correct, sir (DING!)(applause)

Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips; married October 31, 1970 – divorced November 8, 1970

Chaining your bride to the radiator is not a good recipe for a long-lasting marriage?!?

No comment.

Not a director but an agent and producer. Freddie Fields was married four times including to Polly Bergen (recently seen on To Tell the Truth #onethread) and to Kyriaki "Corinna" Tsopei, the Greek Miss Universe who played the love interest in A Man Called Horse.

In 2004, Bergen played Fran Felstein on HBO's The Sopranos, the former mistress of Johnny Soprano and John F. Kennedy.

Yeah, was noticing that. Also, Freddie Fields seems like kind of a John Derek figure. #Onethread.

Had no recollection of that from having watched the show when it first ran.

Shoehorning in:
After Ernie Kovacs died, Edie Adams remarried and then divorced and remarried again, this time to Pete Candoli, who she met when they were both in a touring company of Anything Goes. Don’t think I ever told you guys that one summer I worked for Actor’s Equity behind the Plaza Theater and helped open the mail from all those touring companies. The regular companies too maybe, but for some reason that wasn’t as memorable to me.

Mirren lived with Northern Irish actor Liam Neeson during the early 1980s; they met while working on Excalibur (1981). When interviewed by James Lipton for Inside the Actors Studio, Neeson said Mirren was instrumental in him getting an agent.

Mirren began dating American director Taylor Hackford in 1986. They were married on 31 December 1997 at the Ardersier Parish Church near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.[104] They met on the set of White Nights (1985). It is her first marriage and his third (he has two children from his previous marriages). She has no children, stating she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever".[105]

Mirren's autobiography, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, was published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in September 2007. Reviewing for The Stage, John Thaxter wrote: "Sumptuously illustrated, at first sight it looks like another of those photo albums of the stars. But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour."[106]

Oh yeah, scrolled past mention of somebody involved with a Redd Krosser, and reminded me of Sofia Coppola dating RK's Steven MacDonald (wiki re their Third Eye: The naked masked woman on the cover of the album is Sofia Coppola.[7][8]) Otherwise:

n 1992, Coppola met director Spike Jonze; they married in 1999 and divorced in 2003. In an official statement, Coppola's publicist explained that the divorce decision was reached "with sadness". It is widely believed that the main character's husband in Lost in Translation is based on Jonze, as Coppola stated after the film's release, "There are elements of Spike there, elements of experiences."[86][87]

From 2003 to 2005 Coppola dated filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. They have remained friends since their separation.[88]

Coppola married musician Thomas Mars on August 27, 2011, at Palazzo Margherita in Bernalda, Italy. They met while producing the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides.[89] They have two daughters: Romy (born November 28, 2006), whose name is an homage to Coppola's brother Roman,[90][91] and Cosima (born May 2010).[citation needed]

Thomas Pablo Croquet (born 21 November 1976), known as Thomas Mars, is a French musician and the lead singer of the French indie pop band Phoenix.

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain)
7mo ago
About to bust up in here like Kool-Aid Man with Ron Dante and Lana Turner, but her Ron Dante wasn't _the_ Ron Dante.

ABBA was going to write a song about those two men, but they changed the title at the last minute to "Andante, Andante".

This is as good a time as any to bring up Lana Turner's steamy affair with Kool-Aid Man.

Soon to be made into a major Hollywood Oliver Stone/Quentin Tarantino/Paul Thomas Anderson co-production, The Real Kool-Aid Killers.

Not both actors - you could argue neither were - but the one that always surprises me is George Lazenby and Pam Shriver.

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Sunday, January 15, 2017 10:06 AM (five years ago)

Stumbled across this one today while watching Pam in her job as Wimbledon commentator.

Also, she had three kids with Lazenby in her 40s (and he in his 60s)!

Debbie Harry and Penn Jillette dated according to Wikipedia.

I'm betting Debbie likes to keep that one quiet.

If she wanted to keep that one quiet, she would have dated Teller.

💯

Susan Hanson aka Miss Diane from Crossroads was briefly married to Tommy Vance and much longer to The Move’s Carl Wayne.

I did a double take and thought that said Carol Wayne. Who apparently was married to Burt Sugarman, producer of Celebrity Sweepstakes AND The Midnight Special along with some other shows, and who later married Mary Hart, who he is still married to.

(xp) I knew about Carl Wayne, they were like the glamorous celebrity couple of the West Midlands, also Carl Wayne appeared on Crossroads a few times.

Clifford Odets and Luise Rainer

Which is pushing it a bit as is the following pairing but still.

Oleg Cassini and Gene Tierney

Myrna Loy was married for several years to Arthur Hornblow Jr, producer and eponym for Horatio Hornblower.

Abby Dalton of Roger Corman films and later Falcon Crest, and in-demand West Coast jazz bassist Joe Mondragon

He who played the bass on the Peggy Lee version of "Fever." Good catch.

He said, "Abby, baby, you're my flame - thou giveth fever"

Heh. I think people get confused about who played that part. I know I used to think it was Max Bennett since I associate him more with Peggy Lee. Max Bennett's nephew used to work in a video store in Brooklyn Heights where I may have rented much of the work of some of these old-timey pairs.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/03/nyregion/captain-video.html
https://www.indiewire.com/2006/03/did-netflix-kill-my-local-video-store-135089/
https://www.wweek.com/arts/2019/12/10/a-portland-filmmaker-examines-the-significance-of-video-stores-and-the-path-forward-for-the-few-that-remain/
https://gothamist.com/news/no-ashtray-for-you
http://howesbrooklyn.com/howesbrooklyn/howes-brooklyn-marty-arno/

^obnoxious thread starter derail

No actors or directors, but definitely old-timey:
Screenwriter and Phantom Lady producer Joan Harrison and novelist/screenwriter Eric Ambler.

First place they lived after their wedding was a house Eric was renting in which Vincente Minnelli had once lived.

Just learnt that Sally Timms of The Mekons was married to Fred Armisen.

Wow! Just read about his other marriage too.

Cliff Robertson & Dina Merrill

Not really old time, but Diane Cilento and Anthony Schaeffer.

Screenwriter, producer and WWII rear admiral Gene Mackey was married to- wait for it- Joan Bennett, Hedy Lamarr and Myrna Loy.

Do ur thing gene

*Markey. Crazy he could look back from the perspective of 1947 and realize that in the previous 10 years he had spent some time married to each of those women, plus was divorced for five years, plus fought in WWII.

Oops, thanks for fixing. That’s Admiral Gene Markey to you.

Here’s one that’s evaded us so far:
James Lipton and Nina Foch

James Lipton’s father’s Wikipedia page is wild.

We didn’t even mention Admiral “Bull” Halsey. There’s a whole book about the horse farm the guy had with his fourth wife.

https://academic.oup.com/kentucky-scholarship-online/book/33970/chapter-abstract/288841040?redirectedFrom=fulltext

An unattractive man whospent much of his early career writing B-movie screenplays, Gene Markey possessed enough charm and wit to convince actresses Joan Bennett, Hedy Lamarr, and Myrna Loy to take a walk down the aisle with him while they were at the height of their careers. None of these marriages lasted more than a few years, however. Markey had raised his ante as a successful producer at 20th Century Fox by the time he married his fourth wife: Lucille Parker Wright, the widowed owner of America’s most powerful racing stable, Calumet Farm. The Markeys won three Kentucky Derbies with Iron Liege, Tim Tam, and Forward Pass before mismanagement drove Calumet into a downward spiral from which it never recovered, signaling the end of the Golden Age of horse racing in America

Shooters shoot

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/05/02/111236441.html?pageNumber=94
He graduated from Dartmouth, attended the Art Institute of Chicago and "chronicled the Jazz Age in several novels."

We didn’t even mention Admiral “Bull” Halsey. There’s a whole book about the horse farm the guy had with his fourth wife

Whose fourth wife? I only see one wife listed for Admiral Halsey

Ha, Admiral Markey's fourth wife. Sorry for the misleading ellipsis or what-have-you.

Wrote some horse racing novels in later years.

Lots of photos of him online with his famous spouses, in particular Hedy Lamarr.

How about this: Raoul Walsh and Walter Pidgeon were brothers-in-law, although it’s hard to tell from Wikipedia since Walsh’s second wife’s maiden name seems wrong. Unless it was a married named from later on.

Now I want to read this Brian Kellow book about the Bennetts.