Think of legendary Hollywood pairings and the likes of Bogie and Bacall, Kate and Spencer or William Powell and Myrna Loy take shape on the big screen in your mind.
All these cinematic super couples radiated an unmistakable romantic chemistry that makes them fun to watch again and again. They courted and sparked on film and the heat sometimes even ignited off-screen romances.
One of today's double acts is Richard Gere and Diane Lane, who have repeatedly found themselves in each other's arms before the cameras.
"It's true that Richard and I have this thing," says Lane, 43, as she glances at the 59-year-old silver-haired Gere sitting beside her during an interview for the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe, which opens in Winnipeg Friday.
The two first met onscreen in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 gangster film The Cotton Club, in which Gere's sizzling horn player carried on an uneasy, hush-hush romance with Lane as the gangster's teenage moll. The brunette won an Oscar nomination for her steamy work in 2002's Unfaithful as Gere's cheating wife.
After several false starts, Gere and Lane reunited in the film version of Nicholas Sparks' bestselling novel Nights in Rodanthe, a tearjerker about two unhappy people who find second love just when they least expected it. Adrienne, on the rebound from a adulterous husband, agrees to run her friend's remote North Carolina inn on a stormy weekend with a single guest, a troubled surgeon named Paul.
Both actors were anxious to pair up again, and producer Denise Di Novi was eager for them to do so too, as she says finding leading men and women who have true chemistry is quite rare.
"In the history of movies there are maybe 10 couples that people really want to see over and over," says Di Novi (Edward Scissorhands and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). "It doesn't happen that often. To have one of those couples in your film is such a gift."
While the two are lovers on film they are just good friends off-screen. Lane was present last year when Gere, a vocal advocate for Tibet independence, won the Marian Anderson Award, which honours artists whose leadership benefits humanity.
Both know about taking a second chance to find the love of your life. Since 2002 Gere has been happily wed to one-time Bond girl Carey Lowell, after a previous high-profile marriage to supermodel Cindy Crawford dissolved. Lane first walked down the aisle with French movie star Christopher Lambert (Greystoke) in 1988, divorced in 1994, and remarried in 2004 to the younger actor Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men).
That doesn't mean they don't appreciate each other as members of the opposite sex.
"One thing I always felt about Richard whether onscreen or in person is his ability to make you feel like he can see right through you," says Lane, radiant in a simple chocolate-coloured dress. "Women feel disrobed, and that's a plus."
"For me, too," says Gere, who never seems to age physically.
His grin fades quickly when Lane goes on to describe how Gere would greet her on the set of The Cotton Club every morning and tell her the colour of her aura that day. "Hey," he interrupts, while grimacing.
"That's what you're embarrassed about?" Lane chides him gently. "I think that's adorable. He was right every time. It's true you can't pull the wool over Richard's eyes. It's very disarming and charming."
Di Novi pictured Lane as Adrienne while reading the first page of Nicholas Sparks' 2002 bestselling love story. Despite being named one of People magazine's Most Beautiful People of 2003, the daughter of drama coach Burt Lane and 1957 Playboy centrefold Colleen Farrington comes across as shockingly normal. There is nothing ostentatious in her appearance or demeanour.
"There is something real about Diane," says Di Novi. "She's a star and so beautiful but you don't hate her for it. She has this amazing ability to be larger than life and accessible."
It was no less an authority than Coppola who first gave his blessing to the union of Gere and Lane. During casting for The Cotton Club, Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) had the actors come in to see if there was any spark between them. Lane, then 18, had appeared in Coppola's Rumble Fish and The Outsiders and was none too pleased about having to try out again.
"I was very insecure and that manifested itself with me being a little defensive about having to fly out for a chemistry meeting," says Lane. "I was such a bitch. I thought they were trying to bring Cathy Moriarty's price down."
Gere remembers that first encounter with Lane and her adorable teen precociousness.
"There was something mysterious going on but she was self-possessed at the same time," he recalls. "I remember her leaving the room and going, 'Wow.' I looked at Coppola and said, 'She's the one.'"
Lane turns to Gere and responds with, "Glad to hear that after all this time."
Gere isn't going to let his screen mate have the last word.
"And Cathy Moriarty was more expensive," he cracks.
kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca
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