Two different views of what life is about
On the separation of English actress Kate Winslet (who has lived in New York City for the last seven years) from her husband, the director Sam Mendes, the
Daily Mail reports:
Meanwhile, others have claimed that Miss Winslet split from Mendes, 44, after he told her he could never be with just one woman for the rest of his life.
Miss Winslet was apparently left in tears after the noted theatre and film director told her in a frank conversation that he did not believe in having just one relationship.
A close friend of the actress told the Mail: ‘Sam had been really withdrawn and had shut himself away from her.
‘They then had this big talk and he told her ‘people can’t be inspired by just one relationship. For me, it’s never going to be about one relationship … life is a series of relationships.’
‘Kate told him ‘For me it is, that’s what I want’, but Sam replied ‘Well, that’s not what I want’ and they both knew the marriage could not go on, it was hopeless.
‘Kate did not want to break up, she had been trying her best to keep things together for months, but in the end it was just too much.’
The couple have a son Joe, six, and Kate’s nine-year-old daughter by her first marriage also lives with them in New York.
- end of initial entry -
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes from Canada:
It feels strange to write about Hollywood and the personal lives of celebrities, in the midst of this incredible upheaval that’s going on in the States.
But, celebrities still encompass the larger truths about society and human relations—yes, they are up there, but they are by no means immune to the laws of nature.
After Winslet’s separation from her husband, bloggers have written about other Hollywood wives who divorced or separated from their husbands (or common-laws, to be generous) after the women win Oscars. One recently separated from her husband is Sandra Bullock. She won the Best Actress Oscar for “The Blindside” just this past month! There are others over the past few years, enough to make it a sure trend.
When the woman gets more popular, wins awards, is most certainly more absent from home due to increased acting commitments and publicity tours, and is no longer a “wife” but some independent celebrity, the husbands cheat, find the single relationship restrictive, are no longer supportive, etc.
The funny think is that all the Hollywood media, this pro-gay marriage, female-empowering, Oprah-loving conglomerate, say they predicted as such. They blame it all on the husbands, though, and demand even more that these husbands adjust their behavior (and nature) in the name of equality.
LA replies:
I’m not sure. We don’t know enough about it to judge the situation. Winslet has been a movie star, with a very active career, since she starred in Titanic at age 22 in 1998. So winning the Oscar would not have suddenly made her significantly more unavailable to her husband and family than she had been before.
Couldn’t we just as easily see this as the standard Hollywood situation? Famous successful stars tend to keep looking for new sexual partners.
Consider Frank Sinatra. His first marriage ended not because his wife was a star and was not involved in the family so much, but because he had become a big star, and more glamorous women than his homebody wife became available to him, and he succumbed to the temptation and destroyed his marriage—and, by the way, never seemed to find personal happiness again, except perhaps in his final marriage in his later years.
Kilroy M. writes:
I’ve just read the article in the Daily Mail titled “Today’s Women have Three Times More Sex Than Their Mothers.” This comment struck me as rather odd:
The ICM survey, which was commissioned by Lloyds Pharmacy, also revealed that, despite what appears to be an increase in sexual experimentation, sexual health is not improving.
This is like saying, “Despite what appears to be an increase in smoking, respiratory health is not improving,” or, “Despite what appears to be an increase in alcohol consumption, rates of alcoholism are not improving,” or, “Despite what appears to be an increase in Third World immigration, social cohesion is not improving”
LA replies:
I was about to attempt a clever answer, but I can’t do it. I can’t find any rationalization for this statement, even from a whacky leftist perspective
Kidist replies to LA:
Actually Winslet took time off last year after her last film (and Oscar win) to be home with her family. So, maybe it’s unrelated. But why did her husband wait seven years into their marriage to be tell her his beliefs? She bored him as a housewife? LOL.
I still think that part of the tumultuous married life of most stars is that the women are not true wives, but independent stars. Working actresses.
Also, many of these current Hollywood star wives (and women) act like they own the stage, and their husbands seem all washed out or dishevelled or in the background. I find that soon after such photos surface (i.e. and uncomfortable looking husband), they are separating. (Second link is of Winslet and husband last year).
Ok, I went to wikipedia and looked at Best Actresses and their subsequent divorces.
Some were not married (young) at time of Oscar, some had short, multiple marriages anyway, many divorced four to six years later, so Oscar may not have been a direct cause. But these were the noticeable ones:
Ingrid Bergman divorced one year after Oscar—from 7-year marriage
Julie Andrews divorced three years later—8-year marriage
Jane Fonda divorced two years later—8-year marriage
Liza Minnelli divorced two years later—7-year marriage
Faye Dunnaway, two years later—5-year marriage
Emma Thompson, three years later—5-year marriage
So yes, the trend may not directly hold for older stars. But from 2000-2009, barring 2006 and 2007, each Best Actress star had “split” after the Oscars.
Still, what surprises me is why they get married at all. Monogamy and commitment must mean something to them. I think Hollywood stars, and liberals in general, really want that traditional life with explicit roles. But then they get caught up in their desires and liberal beliefs (one partner is too restrictive?) and they start to lose it.
March 19
Alex K. writes:
Winslet starred in Mendes’ conventionally (in that way in which Hollywood thinks it’s being iconoclastic) anti-bourgeois film “Revolutionary Road,” in which Winslet’s character and her husband take turns having affairs because they are stultified by bourgeois life.
I don’t usually care about celebrity lives but for once I am really interested. I would like to know how it worked that Mendes only dropped such a little detail as “I don’t believe in monogamy” so many years into the marriage, and especially having directed her in this movie a few years ago. All those interviews they all gave about how boldly the film depicts suburban marital suffocation …
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 18, 2010 01:08 PM | Send
