Price of Success

Why cant high achieving women hold on to their relationships? Do they just bedazzle
their partners with their success or does their own insecurity eat at them.
Julia Roberts Gwyneth Paltrow Claudia Schiffer, other than being very famous, sighed
over names; they have in common a penchant for on off relationships with equally sighed
over guys. But it remains just that. On and off. Only to culminate in very cosy just
friends state. What seems to be the problem? Is being in a relationship pass or is single
socialising the norm.
Do these women become self-sustaining even emotionally as their careers blossom? At
the start of their careers they are just another young person out to have a good time after a
hard days work. By the time theyre at the top, they have accumulated a lot of excess
baggage along the way, ego, wealth, fame, and most of all an image to uphold. Mostly the
last is what does in most of their relationships.
When theyre stars, the media documents their every move. Their every gesture clicked
and lapped up by the paparazzi. They learn to manipulate the media and portray
themselves favourably all the time. One wrong move in front of the media could erase
months of image building by a team of dedicated publicists.
So when they enter a relationship after their newfound celebrity status, certain things are
standard. Their significant other must look good as arm candy. They have a public image
thats in keeping with the direction of ones own image building exercise, and must be a
current hottie. Mind you no diva actually realizes that shes set these parameters for
herself, but it becomes apparent as the relationship progresses.
Another factor is the star deep-rooted feelings about herself. Shes a one-person industry
all by herself, so its hard to see herself as part of another person, or to think of herself as
beholden to another. She readily embraces the concept that her partner belongs to her
body and soul, but its difficult to admit that the reverse can be true. So wholly is she
caught up by divadom.
What follows is a relationship that the public is treated to in intimate detail through a
dozen paparazzi zoom lens. She begins to resent the intrusion into her private life, which
she has now suddenly demarcated for herself after years of alerting the media to her
every move. The couple begins to feel self conscious in front of the media. They slowly
curtail public displays of affection.
The media misinterprets this as a sign of a breakup. The situation becomes more
complicated by the partners celebrity status. She begins to feel hes intruding on her
stardom. Arguments flare up, compounding the medias belief that there is indeed a
breakup in the horizon. Each is convinced that the other is being unreasonable and no one
wants to talk anything out anymore. The result? The publicists meet the press and inform
them about the separation due to irreconcilable differences.

Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant: Best Friends and partners

They were the most talked about couple since Hillary and Bill. Off all the brittle
Hollywood romances, theirs was most likely to stand the test of time. She stood by him
through thick and thin and femme fatales (even if they happen to be run of the mill
Sunset Boulevard hookers).
Ever since they burst into Hollywood with the success of Four Weddings and a Funeral
and Hurleys safety pin strung Versace dress that seemed calculated to reveal rather than
conceal, they have been a study in image building.
That famous Versace dress was loaned to Hurley as a favour as she couldnt afford it
then. All that changed. Estee Lauder signed her on as a model shortly and she became a
star in her own right. A brief role as a terrorist in the Wesley Snipes thriller Passenger 57
appeared along the way. She learned to make each public appearance count. She and
Grant were judiciously seen at premieres other than their own, she never smoked at
industry functions and drank only Evian.
The cosy evenings at Book Soup in West Hollywood became extinct. So did the warm
joke filled evenings with other British expats. The candid interviews with besotted
tabloids stopped. The single mindedness with which she went about her task is summed
up by what she told a writer William Cash. Dont you understand? I am the face of a
corporation.
She kept Grant on a tight leash after his scandal with the Sunset Boulevard hooker Divine
Brown. When his success started to wane after the negative publicity following the
incident, their company Simian Films (named because she though Grant looked like a
monkey) teamed up to produce the thriller Extreme Measures. A change from the
romantic comedy types that was Grants forte. Hurley took her responsibility as producer
seriously, proof red scripts and attended meetings, trying to develop Grant role. When the
script needed remedying, she persistently wooed the notoriously gruff scriptwriter
William Goldman. Grant took an active interest in Hurleys career too, campaigning hard
with studio heads like Harvey Weinstein, resulting in some brief appearances like the one
in Austin Powers.
This working relationship, though common in Hollywood, didnt do much for their
relationship. All their activities of togetherness had been ruthlessly cut into by image
building exercises. Hurley and Grant call theirs a trial separation and friends and
neighbours swear that their mutual affection hasnt changed since their parting. The
parting wasnt due to Grants much-publicised liaison with a hooker, but due to a
difference of opinion about starting a family. Says Hurley on her relationship with Grant
Since the day we met, I've always lived as if I were married. Hugh and I drive each other
demented half the time, but he really is my best friend.
If we don't talk to each other for a day, it's torture. And if we split up, I'd feel like my
brother had died. May be so, but the love spark has sputtered out.

Gwyneth Paltrow -Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck

The first press descriptions of Paltrow were as Brad Pitts pretty girlfriend and later
fiance. She was a wraith next to him in the initial years. They were inseparable. But then
the eponymous role in Emma happened. Her appearance as Ethan Hawkes ice queen in
Great Expectations consolidated her position as a big screen siren.
She wasnt just pretty girlfriend anymore, but a name to be reckoned with. More highclass performances with big banners followed A Perfect Murder and Sliding Doors. And
then the role that is a compliment to any woman, she played the Bards muse Viola in
Shakespeare in Love to perfection.
She was also making an image for herself as one of the more stylish and well groomed
celebrities in Hollywood. But by then the cracks were beginning to show in her
relationship with Brad Pitt, her sweetheart since she was 22. Her upper class frostiness
contrasted sharply with Brads All American boy image. The pair relentless hounding
by the media also took its toll. The pair separation too hogged the headlines. Paltrow told
Vanity Fair He's sweet but when you're 22 years old I didn't know anything
about anything. But in retrospect she adds, I think you have to keep yourself intact in
order to have a healthy relationship, and I didn't, I loved every second of it, but it
wasn't healthy. she remarks on her first high profile crush since stardom.
Then came the news about Gwyneth and Ben Affleck. He was flush with the success of
Goodwill Hunting at the Oscars and she was raw after her separation from Brad. But then
came rave reviews for Gwyneth after Shakespeare in Love with strong whiffs from the
Oscars. The relationship dwindled, but neither one bothered to intimate the world about
the reasons for this failure. A teary Gwyneth thanked her good friend Ben in her Oscar
acceptance speech. A year and a half after their break up, they have still kept everyone
guessing. He recently gave Paltrow a pair of pricey Harry Winston earrings. The pair will
now cozy up with a vengeance soon as they are cast in the upcoming movie Bounce, in
which they appear as star-crossed lovers brought together by several fateful coincidences.
Either theyve outsmarted the gossip columnists or they are the most besotted ex-lovers
ever.
Julia Roberts and half of Hollywood
Shes the classiest dame to hit Hollywood since Audrey Hepburn. So its no surprise that
Hollywoods male population has been decimated by her charms. Some are still licking
their wounds. The first heavyweight to fall was Keifer Sutherland. The world sighed in
dismay when they announced their engagement, but that fizzled out amidst much
newsprint. She surprised everyone by marrying the offbeat country singer with the
misshapen face, Lyle Lovett. The marriage lasted two years.
Her career too took its ups and downs. After the success of Pretty Woman, she didnt have
any box office success for a very long time. The media interest in her remained very
constant. Many short term romances blossomed, wilted and fell by the wayside, Dylan

McDermott, Jason Patric, Ethan Hawke, Daniel Day-Lewis and Matthew Perry to name a
few. Her rail thin frame and coltish good looks were packaged in a tense and easily
excitable body. She treated her relationships with the same intensity that she gave in her
performances. And the career lows affected her personality in a big way. Then her career
bounced back again with her understated performance in the onscreen adaptation of John
Grishams novel, Pelican Brief. These were followed by the big budget Michael Collins
and Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson. She was right at the top with My Best Friends
Wedding.
Runaway Bride and Erin Brockovich have consolidated her position as Hollywoods most
bankable female star. Recently a reporter asked her whether men like her better when she
dressed the way Erin Brockovich did. No, they like me all the time. Was the nonchalant
response.
But her love life remained like that of her character in Runaway Bride. She just couldnt
settle down into a stable relationship with anyone. With her present career high, came
another promising relationship, that with the TV star Benjamin Bratt. He's very goodlooking, and his handsomeness pales in comparison to his kindness, Roberts told In
Style. That is all a girl could ask for, really. All that I have to say about Julia couldn't
possibly fit into one or two sentences, gushed Bratt to another magazine.
This one was the longest as far as Julias relationships go, and among the most stable.
But this too has recently shown cracks. Their jet setting lives meant that they could see
each other very little. But this break up is different from the rest of Roberts past
relationships. She wants a commitment and hes unsure and a little scared by that
intensity which sets a thousand movie halls ablaze. This time, its Bratt whos doing the
quitting. Sources close to the actress told MSNBC columnist Jeannette Walls, Julia
wants to get married. Benjamin isn't as committed to the relationship. He wants to spend
more time with his family in California.
Just bad luck? Or is it about time she chilled a little and paid attention to her personal life
and her partners considerations when the going is good?