A Couple We Can Believe In: Unmarried Bliss

After playing lovers in the 1988 baseball film Bull Durham, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins became a real-life couple. Susan has said that in some ways Tim, who is 12 years her junior, is "older and more traditional" than she is. A dad to two of Susan's three kids, Tim says, "Age hasn't been a factor." He directed her Oscar-winning performance in Dead Man Walking and the duo regularly makes headlines for their anti war activism. While the New Yorkers have never married, they remain more committed than ever as they go into their third decade together. 

A Couple We Can Believe In: Just The Two of Us

How smoking are these two? So much so that the rumor mill can't stop speculating that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are really a gay (or bisexual) couple married in heterosexual and career convenience. Pinkett Smith recently brushed off the titters in an NPR interview (no less!), where she basically said: you can believe us or you can lump it. 

With that out of the way, we can proceed. Smith met his pint-sized princess (and former Miss Maryland) on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' when she auditioned to be his onscreen girlfriend. She didn't get the role but got her prince. Twelve years on, the two have a couple of kids, genre-jumping careers and a marriage that's apparently as rock solid as Pinkett Smith's biceps. 

Their secret? She has said utter commitment to the union. Smith's mentioned that they've studied why Hollywood couples break up and have learnt from that. He also told a U.K. tabloid magazine that he'd tell the wife if he wanted to sleep with another woman last year. No word though if he has - or if she's done the same. 

Perhaps it's not the swinging open marriage that gossip purveyors have in mind but the two might just have the kind of crystalline communication that most of us crave. They even tell each other who they have celeb crushes on (him: Beyonce, Salma Hayek; her: The Rock). But we can only imagine that their "I like her/him.." conversations end with "...but I love you."

A Couple We Can Believe In: Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan

They met on "Family Ties" and have been married for more than 20 years. She's a little taller, but he ice skates faster. Michael J. Fox's latest book, Always Looking Up, reveals candid details of his Hollywood love story with Tracy Pollan, which has survived and thrived since his Parkinson's diagnosis. He describes Tracy as his rock, but then says: "I think what she is is much more special than being a rock. Rocks are rigid and nonyielding and she's very fluid." Tracy says the diagnosis has helped their marriage. "When we were first married, he was so busy working all the time," she explains. "So, in some ways, it's made him a lot more available." 

A Couple We Can Believe In

Married for nearly two decades, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are one of those Hollywood power couples who don't show up on TMZ, fighting in parking lots or having indiscretions at nightclubs. Hanks is busy acting, directing, collecting $20 million-plus paychecks and being an all-around nice guy, while Wilson has been producing hits like "Mamma Mia!" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and raising needed funds for EIF's Women's Cancer Research Fund. They just seem damn happy to be around each other and we like that. Perhaps it's the advice Wilson was given by her real-life Greek mother that has kept this bond going strong.  

A Couple We Can Believe In

Change officially begins at noon in Washington D.C. tomorrow. President Barack Obama holds the hopes and dreams of many, including ours at MVWD. In the annals of courtship of the famous and fabulous, Obama and Michelle represent how things can go unbelievably right (and remain so). We've seen the fist bumps, the election night kisses, heard their cute remarks about each other (she: he's got bad breath; he: she's always right), read about their first date and been generally enamored about how actually happy they look. Here's an early image of them (a few short years after they began dating) taken in 1996 in Chicago by Mariana Cook and republished last week in The New Yorker. Not only did we did we ooh and ahh over the lovely meditations on their marriage in the accompanying interview but we were impressed by the rather saucy Indonesian print (the one in the middle) overhead in the portrait.