PARIS (APP) - The end of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's marriage Tuesday provoked such a worldwide media storm precisely because this "socially engaged" couple had given the impression that theirs was a partnership which worked both publicly and privately, according to a leading celebrity magazine editor.
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Like legendary Hollywood couples before them including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, love blossomed on set, the actors falling for each other in 2004 while filming "Mr and Mrs Smith" -- a movie about marriage. In an ironic final twist given how many celebrity unions ends in tears, the two married assassins were tasked with killing each other.
With such a back story, the public's obsession with the couple was inevitable, said Laurence Pieau, editor of the French edition of Closer magazine.
Why has their split attracted such coverage?
"This was a couple that was born under the eyes of the cameras in the most dramatic of circumstances," said Pieau. "Brad Pitt was then married to the actress Jennifer Aniston, who was very much America's sweetheart. Angelina Jolie had two failed marriages behind her. But being together seemed to strengthen both of them. She hugely increased her range and began to get involved in humanitarian causes and began directing films.
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He also took more risks and abandoned his image as a pretty boy. Then their family began to grow, we saw them all going to toy stores together and playing the game of promoting each other's work on the red carpet. They were a couple who looked established, and it seemed they were capable (of) doing it all. It was a real alliance of beauty and talent, a family that seemed at ease wherever in the world they were together."