It's the most romantic time of year! Along with roses and a box of chocolates, these Valentine's Day love stories featuring Academy alumni are sure to set the mood.
Hollywood royalty Grace Kelly, a 1949 graduate, stars as a princess trying to provoke a proposal from Alec Guinness's Prince Albert in the classic romantic comedy The Swan. When her plan goes awry, as these things tend to do, she finds herself having to choose between two suitors. Alumna Agnes Moorehead rounds out the royal cast as Prince Albert's mother, Queen Maria Dominika.
Grace Kelly (1949) with Alec Guinness in The Swan
A modern romantic classic, The Notebook was directed by 1980 alumnus Nick Cassavetes, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.The film also features Cassavetes real-life mother and fellow alumnus Gena Rowlands, a 1952 graduate, as a woman struggling to remember her fraught romance as a young woman in a South Carolina beach town in the 1940s. In 2019, a Broadway musical adaptation of the film was announced.
Gena Rowlands (1952) with James Garner in The Notebook
Having a child with your best friend while you search for The One; what could go wrong? 1993 graduate Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt try this exact approach in the ensemble romantic comedy Friends With Kids.
Adam Scott (1993) with Jennifer Westfeldt in Friends With Kids
Past student Anne Hathaway stars opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in the drama Love & Other Drugs, following the tumultuous romance of a pharmaceutical salesman and a woman with early-onset Parkinson's disease. For her role as Maggie Murdock, Hathaway received a nomination for a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy at the 68th Golden Globes.
Past student Anne Hathaway with Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & Other Drugs
Robert Redford, a 1959 alumnus, reprised his role in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's play Barefoot in the Park, which cast him opposite frequent costar Jane Fonda. Playing straitlaced Paul married to Fonda's more free-spirited Corie, the film depicts the ups and downs of this opposites-attract couple in New York City.
Robert Redford (1959) with Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park
Focusing on the love among a group of supportive female friends as much as their various romantic relationships, Waiting to Exhale features 1977 alumnus Dennis Haysbert as a married executive who courts a successful television producer, played by Whitney Houston.
Dennis Haysbert (1977) with Whitney Houston in Waiting to Exhale
The Fifty Shades trilogy, which takes a more adult look at love and romance, features 2004 graduate Luke Grimes as Elliot Grey, the adopted brother of millionaire playboy Christian Grey.
Luke Grimes (2004) with Rita Ora and Dakota Johnson in the Fifty Shades film trilogy
Perhaps the quintessential comedy about modern love and dating, HBO's Sex and the City stars Kim Cattrall, a 1974 graduate, in her iconic role as the raunchy Samantha Jones, as well as 1986 alumnus David Eigenberg as Steve Brady, the eventual match of high-strung Miranda Hobbes. Both went on to appear in the movie adaptations of the series.
Kim Cattrall (1974) and Cynthia Nixon with David Eigenberg (1986) in Sex in the City
The 1955 film All That Heaven Allows, featuring 1929 alumnus Agnes Moorehead, follows the courtship of a well-to-do widow and a younger landscape designer, portrayed by Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. This classic melodrama about a May-December romance in the glare of small town conformity was unusual at the time for its "older woman-younger man" dynamic.
Agnes Moorehead (1929) with Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman and director Douglas Sirk in All That Heaven Allows
Past student Jessica Chastain made her professional acting debut in the ultimate doomed romance as Juliet in the TheatreWorks production of Romeo & Juliet in San Francisco. The production reimagined the classic Shakespearean tragedy in war-torn Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Past student Jessica Chastain with Travis Engle in the TheatreWorks production of Romeo & Juliet
Paul Rudd, a 1991 graduate, stars opposite Jennifer Aniston in the romantic comedy The Object of My Affection, which finds a social worker falling in love with her gay best friend.
Paul Rudd (1991) with Jennifer Aniston in The Object of My Affection
Inspired by the life of jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke, the film noir Young Man With A Horn stars alumni Kirk Douglas, a 1941 graduate,and Lauren Bacall, a 1942 graduate,as a trumpet player and aspiring psychiatrist entangled in a complicated affair. Famed trumpeter Harry James performed the music Douglas is shown playing on screen.
Kirk Douglas (1941) with Lauren Bacall (1942) in Young Man With A Horn
