accessAtlanta

On-screen heat = off-screen splits

Jennifer Aniston probably knows as much as anyone about big, noisy, tabloidy Hollywood uncouplings. Now there are persistent rumors she and her "The Break-Up" co-star Vince Vaughn are a twosome.

That kind of talk is good for box office, but what Hollywood's really good at is making movies where the on-screen sexual heat bleeds into real life. Here are a few notable on-screen moments that either caused or got entangled in stormy, real-life breakups:

Universal Pictures (enlarge photo) Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston in 'The Break-Up' (2006). Read reviews of 'The Break-Up' movie

• Brad Pitt + Angelina Jolie - Jennifer Aniston = "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" (2005)
The movie wasn't very good, but Pitt and Jolie's sexual chemistry was undeniable.

• Billy Crudup + Claire Danes - Mary-Louise Parker = "Stage Beauty" (2004)
When Crudup left Parker, she was seven months pregnant with their son.

• Jude Law + Sienna Miller - Sadie Frost = "Alfie" (2004)
The postscript: Law later had to apologize to Miller for cheating with his kids' nanny.

• Julia Roberts + Daniel Moder - Vera Steimberg Moder = "The Mexican" (2001)
The cameraman Roberts met on the set married her two months after his divorce became final.

• Russell Crowe + Meg Ryan - Dennis Quaid = "Proof of Life" (2000)
She reportedly says her marriage to Quaid was on the rocks before she filmed "Proof" with Crowe.

• Steve McQueen + Ali MacGraw - Robert Evans = "The Getaway" (1972)
The stars were aligned for her to star in producer Evans' "Chinatown" before she met McQueen.

• Warren Beatty + Leslie Caron - Peter Hall = "Promise Her Anything" (1965)
After her divorce to producer Hall, Caron eventually went on to producer Michael Laughlin. As for Beatty, he spied Julie Christie.

• Elizabeth Taylor + Richard Burton - Eddie Fisher = "Cleopatra" (1963)
Taylor and Burton met on the set and were married nine days after her divorce became final.

• Elizabeth Taylor + Eddie Fisher - Debbie Reynolds = "Butterfield 8" (1960)
One of the most notorious Hollywood breakups, the married Fisher and Reynolds were consoling Taylor over the death of her husband Michael Todd.

• Ingrid Bergman + Roberto Rossellini - Peter Lindstrom = "Stromboli" (1950)
What a difference a few decades make. For leaving her husband, Bergman was denounced at the time by a U.S. senator as a "powerful influence for evil." Whereas People magazine just named Jolie and Pitt the world's most beautiful family.