Hollywood stars who found love with ‘normal’ non-celebrities

It was an unremarkable day in Music City when 18-year-old Dolly Parton met Carl Thomas Dean at the laundromat. Unlike the global singer, he is more of a man of solitude who has stayed out of the limelight. 

”I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes. I was in such a hurry to get here – and after I’d put my clothes in the machine, I started walkin’ down the street, just lookin’ at my new home, and this guy hollered at me, and I waved. Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody. And he came over and, well, it was Carl, my husband.” she told New York Times magazine.

Dolly’s meteoric rise soon put pay to the ‘normal’ start to their relationship but it didn’t put off Carl, as 57 years of marriage prove. ”He’s always been my biggest fan behind the scenes,” Dolly told reporters at the premiere of her Netflix series, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings. But anyway, he’d never come dragging around. I’d rather bring somebody else with me, you know? He’s never jealous of that either.”

In the early days, Dolly did take Carl to an event but he decided that the life of glitz was not for him. ”He went to one thing with me early on, when we first married, to a BMI Song of the Year (event), and he came out of there taking off his tuxedo, his tie and all that and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going.’ I never asked him and he never did,” she recounted on the podcast What Would Dolly Do?

There can’t be many better tales of opposites attracting!

What would happen if you served a Hollywood star while bartending? Well if you are Luciana Damon, you fall in love and get married. 

Matt Damon was on a break from shooting Stuck on You when he and his crew went to the bar for a drink. The 54-year-old told Ellen that meeting his future wife was fated: ”I saw her across a crowded room. Eight years and four kids later, that’s my life. I don’t know how else our paths would’ve crossed if that didn’t happen.”

Luciana recalled the events (less dramatically) to Vogue Australia: ”Matt’s story is that he saw me across the room and there was a light on me. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it was a nightclub — there were lights everywhere!”

”He had started getting recognised and asked for pictures and autographs, and then it got kind of aggressive because people are drinking and stuff,” she went on. ”So he came and hid behind the bar … (wanting to) just hang out back there and have a drink. He says, ‘Oh, I saw you and I really wanted to talk to you.”

After he helped her out behind the bar serving drinks, he asked Luciana to go to another bar with his friends. However the single mum replied: ”’I can’t, I have a four-year-old daughter, I’m not going anywhere’ … and that was one of the things he loved, that I had a daughter.”’

One of the longest-running couples in Hollywood, Julia Roberts met cinematographer husband Danny Moder on the set of The Mexican. 

”I think that first kind of real … ‘seismic shift’ was meeting Danny. Getting married to Danny. That was the first, like, my life will never be the same in the most incredible, indescribable way … He truly, to this day, to this minute, is just my favorite human.”

Even though Danny is not an actor, the couple have collaborated on creative projects including The Normal Heart, for which Danny earned an Emmy nomination. Over the years the pair have welcomed three children: Hazel, Phinnaeus, and Henry. 

Grey’s Anatomy heartthrob Patrick Dempsey found romance with hair stylist Jillian Fink when he booked an appointment at her salon 30 years ago. 

When Jillian, 58, saw the name attached to the booking she initially assumed it was a joke, so was both surprised and delighted when the lusciously coiffeured star walked in.  ”I was shocked. But at the same time, I was happy because he was so cute,” she told People.

They married in 1999 and went on to have three children: Talula Fyfe and twins, Darby Gale and Sullivan Patrick. 

In 2015 they split and filed for divorce, though quickly reconciled. Patrick, 58, told People: ”Jill and I decided it was time to work on our issues and improve. We wanted to be role models for our kids like, okay, if you have differences, you can work them out.”

It was love at first sight for Anne when she met actor and jewellery designer Adam Shulman, despite her previous relationship ending in acrimonious circumstances.

”I knew from the second I met him that he was the love of my life, Anne told Harper’s Bazaar UK.  I also knew that I couldn’t have met him at a worse time.” She wasn’t exaggerating: her ex- boyfriend of four years, Italian property designer Raffaello Follieri, had recently pleaded guilty to 14 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Adam proved a far better choice of partner and the pair went on to marry (Adam designed the engagement ring) and have two sons: Jonathan Rosebanks and Jack. Having a ‘normal’  homelife has really benefited Anne’s career too. When she played a domestic abuse victim in Serenity, she told People: ”I thought I was doing a good job of keeping myself safe and in my life. And then by the end, it had just taken over. I’m just really grateful I had my husband there to remind me where our life ended and where she began and helping to keep that clear for me.”

After first spotting Alex on a ferry, Wanda told The Guardian: ”Something really said to me, like, audibly, ‘Wow, that’s what you need, Wanda.” With the help of mutual friends, Wanda was put in touch with the French interior designer to discuss a potential kitchen remodelling and, as fate would have it, they really hit it off. They privately married in 2005, a month before Alex came out as publically gay at a same-sex marriage rally in Las Vegas. 

Despite not being an actor, Alex is Wanda’s ‘muse’ for her comedy work, often mimicking her French-ness. She told Variety: ”This is just how I see her. I didn’t do it this in the special, so she’s like (in a French accent, pretending to hold a cigarette), ‘Everybody thinks I smoke now! Everybody’s asking me, ‘Alex, when did you start smoking?” When I talk like her, I just happen to do it.”

A rep of Wanda’s told People that Alex gave birth to twins Lucas Claude and Olivia Lou in 2009. While keeping their family life private, Alex posted a picture of birthday cakes on Instagram with the caption:  “Guess who’s 12 today?? #proud #moms  #surreal.”

Hannah Bagshawe first caught Eddie’s eye when the pair were teenagers and she and her classmates put on a charity fashion show at his school, Eton College.

A true slowburn, Eddie Redmayne was friends with Hannah for 12 years before romance developed. Their first date was a showstopper with Eddie whisking her off to Florence on a break from filming Les Miserables. He told the Daily Mail in 2015: ”Before I went, Hannah and I were on a sort of date – we’d been good friends for 12 years – and we had a wonderful evening and I suddenly said, ‘You don’t want to come to Florence with me next week, do you?’ She said, ‘That’s absurd, you don’t mean it.’ I said, ‘Yes I do!’ So our first proper date was in Florence. That was three years ago and we couldn’t be happier.”

Hannah used to work as an antique dealer which came in handy when styling her boyfriend’s red carpet looks. Eddie, 42, told People: ”When I go out to premieres and events, I have to check with my girlfriend that the trousers match the top. I recently wore a blue suit – and I had to ask her if it was really blue rather than purple. She assured me it was blue. I could not tell the difference.” The now-married pair have two children: Iris and Luke.

Jennifer Lawrence and art gallerist husband Cooke Maroney enjoy a really private relationship  – though true normality is hard to achieve when dating a Hollywood star, particularly at the outset.

”So when I started dating my now husband, I was so embarrassed to bring my (security guard) when [Cooke] asked me out, Jennifer told Vanity Fair.  I mean, how mortifying would that have been?”

The 34-year-old star continued: ”So I didn’t, and it made me really nervous the first few times, and it turned out totally fine. I realised you get more privacy if….I don’t know if this is even safe to talk about. I have security all the time. Twenty-four hours a day. And a gun!”

The couple went on to have son Cy in 2022, and when asked by Vanity Fair what marriage to Cooke is like, Jennifer said: ”I really enjoy going to the grocery store with him. I don’t know why but it fills me with a lot of joy.”

”I always get one of the cooking magazines, like 15 Minute Healthy Meals, and he always gives me a look like, ‘you’re not going to use that. When are you going to make that?’ And I say, ‘Yes, I am. Tuesday!’ And he’s always right, and I never do.”’