Hollywood Hookups
1949Screen siren and exhibitionist Tallulah Bankhead insists that blues legend Billie Holiday keep her dressing room door open while they have sex, almost getting the singer fired in the process.
1951
Actress Ava Gardner marries vox populi Frank Sinatra, later explaining, “There’s only 10 pounds of Frank — but there’s 110 pounds of cock.” After just a couple of years they separate and Sinatra embarks on an affair with then-only-15-years-old film star Natalie Wood.
1955
Singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds get married despite Reynolds’s friend, Frank Sinatra, warning that the union is destined for disaster. In 2002 Reynolds will recall, “He said, ‘You should never marry a singer. We’re unreliable.’”
1959
Eddie Fisher deserts Debbie Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor. Remarkably, Taylor and Reynolds will eventually work together on a film — 2001’s These Old Broads — the latter commenting, “You say bygones be bygones, especially if the man you married proves to be a complete idiot.”
1963
The on-set chemistry between Elvis Presley and his Viva Las Vegas! co-star Ann-Margaret inspires rumors — never confirmed or denied — of an affair. Presley later dates Cybill Shepherd, who will subsequently say of the Burger King, “The last time I saw him in Las Vegas, he gave me an emerald ring in one hand and sleeping pills in the other. I returned both.”
1965
Rolling Stone Brian Jones meets future Barbarella star Anita Pallenberg while playing a show in Munich. According to Pallenberg, “Brian was tearful that night because Mick and Keith had teamed up on him, and I really felt sorry for him.” They become an item, despite the acid-deranged Jones’s habit of punching Pallenberg in the face.
1966
Frank Sinatra weds petite actress Mia Farrow, prompting ex-wife Ava Gardner to sneer “I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy.” The pair divorce two years later. When Farrow later discovers boyfriend Woody Allen has been taking nude photographs of her adopted daughter Soon-Yi, Sinatra offers to have his legs broken.
1967
Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg and Keith Richards take a road trip to Morocco. But after just one day, Jones is hospitalized with blood in his lungs. Pallenberg and Richards carry on and are soon having sex in their chauffeur-driven car. “A lot can go on in the backseat of a Bentley,” Richards will later explain. “Shit happens, man.”
1968
More shit happens during the filming of British art-gangster movie Performance when Pallenberg sleeps with her co-star, and Richards’s bandmate, Mick Jagger. In a not unconnected decision, Richards declines to write any music for the film’s soundtrack.
1970
Narcotically troubled actor-director-nutcase Dennis Hopper marries Michelle Phillips and, the Mamas and the Papas singer claims, keeps her in handcuffs, believing she is a witch. Hopper will deny the accusation — claiming “she had the handcuffs” — but regardless, the marriage lasts a mere eight days.
1972
Sammy Davis Jr. meets Linda Lovelace, star of oral-sex-oriented porn movie Deep Throat. Despite both being married, they begin a (semi) affair. “(Sammy) had his own code of marital fidelity,” Lovelace later wrote in her autobiography. “What he wanted me to do was to deep-throat him. Because that would not be an act of infidelity.”
1972
Carly Simon releases “You’re So Vain,” a song widely believed to be about either Mick Jagger, who supplies backing vocals, or Bonnie and Clyde star and all-around cocksman Warren Beatty. Years later, when Simon is asked if she actually went out with Beatty, the singer will reply, “Hasn’t everybody?”
1976
Rod Stewart gets into the panties of Bond girl Britt Ekland — literally. “One day I wore Britt’s [underwear] and told someone,” he later says. “And it’s lived with me ever since.” In 1977 the pair split. The singer’s then-publicist subsequently says of the infamously tight-with-money Stewart, “Britt was naive — Rod Stewart is faithful to no one, except his bank manager maybe.”
1978
Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, begins a relationship with singer-songwriter Paul Simon, former boyfriend of Shelley “Olive Oyl” Duvall and Fisher’s senior by 15 years. They marry in August 1983 but separate the following April. Fisher later commented, “I figured out what he needed was an intellectual geisha.”
1980
Heartthrob singer Andy Gibb starts dating onetime Frank Sinatra paramour and Dallas soapstress Victoria Principal. They release a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream” but soon break up, and Gibb completely falls apart, becoming a $1,000-a-day cocaine addict.
1980
Proving that even utterly diabolical prehistoric comedies have a silver lining, ex-Beatle Ringo Starr falls in love with Bond girl Barbara Bach on the set of the otherwise lamentable Caveman. They marry, and Starr’s 2005 CD Choose Love will contain a song about their still-ongoing relationship titled “Me and You.” Awww …
1981
Eddie Van Halen marries Valerie Bertinelli, star of TV sitcom One Day at a Time. The actress sticks with Eddie through his alcoholism, cancer and decision to replace Extreme’s Gary Charone as Van Halen’s frontman, but the couple finally split in 2001.
1982
Don Henley releases solo album I Can’t Stand Still, which is not only dedicated to his girlfriend, Battlestar Galactica actress Maren Jensen, but also features her on backing vocals. Meanwhile, Toto release “Rosanna,” a tribute to actress Rosanna Arquette, who is dating the band’s Steve Porcaro.
1984
At the Playboy Mansion, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons meets Shannon Tweed, pneumatic future star of Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure and Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. “After meeting Shannon,” the God of Thunder will later recall, “I lost interest in the other new friends I made that night, including Miss February.” The couple have two children.
1985
Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee is introduced to Heather Locklear at an REO Speedwagon show. The next week, Lee calls the Dynasty dynamo and instantly confuses her with Fall Guy actress Heather Thomas. According to Lee, “I made a million mistakes with her — and she still fucking went out with me!”
1985
When Madonna appears on the cover of Time magazine, she phones beau Sean Penn, telling him “You get over here now. How many girlfriends have you had on the cover of Time? One! Me!” The pair marry soon afterwards, the presence of paparazzi-bearing helicopters inspiring a pissed-off Penn to greet guests with the words “Welcome to the remaking of Apocalypse Now.”
1985
Bruce Springsteen, the Woody Guthrie of his generation, marries Julianne Phillips, the future star of Fletch Lives. The pair separate in 1988 after Springsteen falls for singer Patti Scialfa.
1986
Tommy Lee and Heather Locklear marry at a ceremony mostly memorable for the fact that junkie best man, Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, repeatedly nods off in front of the 500 assembled guests.
1989
In January, Sean Penn and Madonna divorce. The following month the singer starts filming Dick Tracy with leather-faced lothario Warren Beatty. The pair become an item, with Beatty asserting, “She makes me young.” Not young enough, however; Madonna is soon suggesting that the 21-years-older actor get liposuction.
To find out which actors and singers hooked up in the '90s and beyond, pick up the November issue of Blender on newsstands now!
