• 09
  • February
    2011

With the Academy Awards only a few weeks away, much of the discussion on the internet, in magazines and around the watercooler will be devoted to speculation over what movie will win the award for Best Picture or who will win the coveted Best Actor/Best Actress award.

Interestingly enough, not all of this Oscar-related discussion may be devoted to the impending award show but rather to a recent study examining the so-called "Oscar Curse," meaning the high divorce rate among Best Actress winners.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, examined the marital records of exactly 751 movie stars who were nominated for either Best Actress or Best Actor awards from 1936 to 2010.

The express purpose of the study? To determine whether there is "theoretical merit to, and empirical evidence for, the Oscar Curse." More specifically, researchers wanted to learn "why might these much-admired women [who have won the Best Actress award] have greater difficulty in sustaining their marriages than their male counterparts?"

The researchers found that actresses who took home an Oscar remained married for an average of roughly 4.3 years, while their fellow nominees remained married for an average of 9.5 years. Similarly, both actors who took home an Oscar and their fellow nominees remained married for an average of roughly 12 years.

"Oscar wins are associated with a greater risk of divorce for Best Actresses, but not for Best Actors," wrote the researchers.

A quick glance at the Best Actress winners over the last nine years would seem to verify these conclusions as half are now divorced: Halle Berry (2001), Hilary Swank (2004), Reese Witherspoon (2005), Kate Winslet (2008) and Sandra Bullock (2009).

According to researchers, there are two primary reasons for this high rate of divorce. One, the husband develops a general discomfort with the wife's success/fame and seeks to end the marriage. Two, the Oscar winning wife feels that she has outgrown the marriage or the win has given her the "confidence and opportunity to move away from a bad marriage."

If you have exhausted all of your options and would like to learn more about dissolution of marriage, you should strongly consider speaking with an experienced legal professional.

This post is provided for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice.

Stay tuned for more from our Denver family law blog ...

Related Resources:

Best actress Oscar winners are more likely to divorce than Best Actor winners  (The Washington Post)