Directors Who Date Actresses Way Out of Their League

With the pop-culture bombshell that is Kristen Stewart's affair with her Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) director Rupert Sanders, I've been wondering what is it about a backwards cap and a bullhorn that makes hot young actresses hiccup in their pants. But this is just one instance in a long line of strangely incongruent love affairs between filmmakers and their actresses. There's almost always huge age, height, and general hottness-factor differences, but apparently it's all an Oedipal mentor-like kind of dichotomy. In this case, it was worth giving up regular sex with Robert Pattinson, but this is a pattern in Hollywood that is seriously nothing new and is actually pretty par for the course. Here are some other examples of passionate love affairs in some cases leading to marriage between directors and actresses in their films that are way out of their league.

If you read my blog you know I hate on Kristen Stewart more than I write about Yul Brynner's junk...and that's a feat. But even I'm not above admitting she's one hot cookie. And clearly, way too hot for Rupert Sanders. She was already dating a scruffy, pseudo-hipster, brooding Brit...what the hell did she trade down for?

Yes, Orson Welles was the greatest genius of his and most lifetimes, and his voice was utterly hypnotic. But straight up, Rita Hayworth was potentially the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth...still is, I haven't found anyone to top her yet. So these two get a pass, somewhat. What's really nuts is that he ended up breaking up with her...then dying alone, miserable, unemployable, and drunk...so clearly he made the right choice.

In France, being 'attractive' is a relative term, and I'm sure in his heyday, Jean-Luc Godard was considered a fox...no I'm not, with him, it had to always have been about his originality and talent. But Anna Karina had to have the hindsight to know that it wouldn't work out. How long does it last with a pretentious and cynical French director? The answer is not very.

Milla Jovovich and Luc Besson will never ever...not ever make sense to me. He's so dull. And filmmaking-wise, he's a total one-trick pony. But we all make stupid mistakes when we're 20 right Milla? We just don't marry them.

This has to be my favorite. Otto Preminger and Dorothy Dandridge. He directed her in Carmen Jones (1954) and she fell head over heels in love with the strange, slightly creepy old fart. But turns out she was pretty mentally disturbed and had a losing streak with love so this was just another drop in the bucket.

This is slightly cheating as David O. Selznick was a producer rather than a director but he and Jennifer Jones definitely had a Svengali-like relationship and he advanced, scratch that; made her career basically. Also he ended up divorcing his wife Irene Mayer-Selznick who had basically kept him afloat while he was a young tough with no money trying to make it in Hollywood (her father was the legendary Louis B. Mayer so she was always swimming in it).

In all honesty, I would fall for Ingmar Bergman too. Have you ever seen an interview with him? No one on the planet more morose, suicidal, and death-obsessed, so clearly panty-dropping material, but if I was Liv Ullman, I'd go there. She definitely turned out the better for it. But to be fair, anyone who gets to bed Liv Ullman got the better bargain.

When Ingrid Bergman ran off with Roberto Rossellini and left her husband and young child, it was quite the incendiary story back in 1950. But any woman who can marry arguably one of the 10 best filmmakers of all time and still keep her iconic status as well as relevance in the cinema in her own right knows what she's doing.

I feel like the subtitle to this picture should be French sex-kitten marries king of all dorks Chess pro. But actually it's French sex-kitten marries French filmmaker. Roger Vadim has like the best track record for directing and then marrying hot young ladies...And I'm still not sure why! But none of which were more aesthetically pleasing than Brigitte Bardot. Bravo sir, Bravo!

Roman Polanski always had a way with the ladies...ok that's way wrong to say. Roman Polanski had a few tricks up his sleeve...nope, not that either. Basically there's no way of saying this with class, so I'll just say Roman Polanski is short, has a thick accent, and makes bizarrely haunting films that give everyone who sees them nightmares for the rest of their lives. Emmanuelle Seignier was a 20 year old 6-foot-tall French model (and as we know French models are better looking than your average run-of-the-mill human model). Alas, they have been happily married for 23 years and have two kids to show for it so more power to them. And it's nice that no one makes him stand on phone books in pictures next to her. Also I was just jesting, I love Polanski's films.

This is the classic story of young actress new to the film business auditions for big time director, young actress gets the part, young actress falls in love with big time Hollywood director and vice-versa, young actress marries big time director, takes his name, and gives up her career to be a wife to him and mother of his children. That's why most people have no idea who Christiane Kubrick is. Blink and you'll miss her in Paths of Glory (1957), but her scene is actually quite memorable. I can't imagine being married to Stanley Kubrick was any kind of cake walk, but they made it work so good for them.

Let's bookend this with another scandolous contemporary story and reverse it! Nothing has been more bizarre than the hook up and eventual marriage of filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood and Aaron Johnson (now, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, yes he took her last name much like John 'Ono' Lennon whom he played in her film Nowhere Boy) But all creep factors aside...no I'm sorry this relationship is all creep factors to me. Not only is there a 20-year age gap, but he was 17 when they hooked up, and he's impregnated her twice in the last two years. I mean if he ever wants to sew his wild oats and actually finish up an adolecsents which she basically robbed him of, he's going to be in some serious shit because now there are kids involved. I'm sorry but I just can't get on board with those two, no matter how often both of them are screaming into any microphone that will listen that they are genuinely in love. Whatever.

Below are some clips.