THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARRIAGE

BY BELINDA M. PASCHAL

Love and marriage might go together like a horse and carriage, but it seems celebrities and marriage go together like Britney Spears and underpants. What is it about fame that dooms a marriage before the ink on the license has dried?

In the time it’s taken you to read this far, a Hollywood starlet has married, divorced, re-wed, had a couple of extramarital affairs and booked an appearance on “Maury” to determine who’s her baby’s daddy.

Once upon a time, celebrity marriages were cause for glad tidings of great joy: “Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward? Lovely couple! They’ll last forever.” (Forty-nine years and counting!) Now, they’re the basis for office betting pools: “Avril Lavigne and that guy from that band? Two years. A year and a half if she writes another song like ‘Girlfriend’.”

The troubled Ms. Spears holds the record for shortest celebrity marriage – 55 hours of wedded bliss to childhood friend Jason Alexander. She beat out Zsa Zsa Gabor, who spent one day in 1982 as Mrs. Felipe Whatever (when you’re on Hubby No. 8, are names really important?), but the union was declared invalid because Zsa-squared was still married to her previous husband.

To be fair, we hear about the marriages that don’t make it because misery sells, merriment doesn’t. Vendors would have to throw in a free Bowflex and home visits by Billy Blanks to unload tabloids boasting, “Couple remains happy and faithful for yet another year!” Unless one-half of the couple was, say, Bigfoot.

We hear about the flops, but many have proven it can be done. Legendary actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were married almost 57 years when Davis died in 2005. Bill and Camille Cosby, 43 years. Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, 25 years. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, 19 years. Jon Bon Jovi and non-celeb wife Dorothea, 18 years. Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn never legally married, but they’ve been together 24 years. Musician John Lydon has been with his wife more than 20 years – and we’re talking about a guy best known as Johnny Rotten!

Obviously, today’s young stars could take a page from the book of love written by the “old-timers” (with the exception of Zsa Zsa, of course). Susan Sarandon, who’s been with partner Tim Robbins for 19 years, said in 2005, “I'm certainly not an expert, but Tim and I just celebrated 17 years together, which in Hollywood years I think is 45. I think the key is just focusing on this one person and not keeping one eye on the door to see who might be better.”

In other words, the “something borrowed” at a wedding should not be someone else’s husband or wife.

If the kids don’t want to listen to their elders, perhaps they’ll heed the advice of a peer. "You have to keep marriage alive, spice it up. We have something called naked Sundays,” says Christina Aguilera of life with music exec Jordan Bratman, her husband of almost two years. “We don't need to go anywhere, we're just with each other. We do everything naked. We cook naked.”

Hmm. Maybe if Britney had shed more than her skivvies, she’d still be Mrs. K-Fed.