20 years on, who’s won the Oscar for love, money and happiness?
He was 22, she 21 when they made Titanic. Close friends since — but who’s fared best?
THEY embraced, they held hands, they gazed deep into each other’s eyes . . . no, it wasn’t Jack and Rose on the Titanic but Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on the Oscar red carpet this Sunday.
It was such an OTT display of luvvieness that many Hollywood stalwarts would have shown surprise — if only their Botox had allowed them to.
And when Kate shed a tear of joy as Leo finally picked up his first Oscar — he won the coveted Best Actor for The Revenant — it showed how deep the bond they first forged on the set of Titanic all those years ago really was.
Since then Kate, now 40, and Leo, 41, have made 46 films between them and, somewhat miraculously for the fickle world of Hollywood, have stayed friends.
But whose career has fared better since their dunking in the Atlantic? Who’s had the more colourful love life and who’s got the more crowded mantelpiece?
CLAUDIA CONNELL looks at whose star is still on the rise and whose is, comparatively, out in the cold . . .
TITANIC WEALTH
Kate: €83 million
POOR Kate Winslet. Not literally, of course — she’s worth a fortune compared to the likes of you and me. In Hollywood terms, though, she’s practically a pauper. Despite a cabinet groaning with awards, British-born Kate fails to make the Top 10 Richest Actresses list. Or the top 20. Or even the top 30.
Instead, she limps in at number 33, behind such luminaries as Gates McFadden and Krysten Ritter (no, we haven’t heard of them either). She has barely half of Angelina Jolie’s €161million fortune — not that you’ll ever hear Kate complaining (or see her shopping at Aldi).
The much-discussed Hollywood pay gap between actors and actresses could be why she’s earned so much less than DiCaprio despite filming more movies, but it’s most likely because she tends to opt for lower-budget British films over Hollywood blockbusters.
While averaging €2.6million per film, her biggest pay cheque to date was the €7.8million she netted for 2004’s Finding Neverland.
Leo: €227 million
DESPITE his fate in Titanic, Leo’s managed to keep his financial head above water far better than his co-star.
He’s the 13th-richest actor in the world (though still some way behind the wealthiest movie star, Tom Cruise, who’s worth a staggering €390 million).
But he’s been canny. While on paper his average salary of €18million a movie hasn’t changed for more than 15 years, he now mostly restricts himself to films his company, Appian Way Productions, co-produces — meaning that he also takes home a share of the profits.
That helped him secure his biggest pay cheque — a whopping £43 million — as an actor and producer on the 2010 sci-fi thriller Inception.
Not that Leo’s all about the money, you understand. In 2012, he agreed to star in his friend Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained for ‘just’ €910,000. Winner: Leonardo
HITS AND FLOPS Kate’s box office takings: €3.6 billion
IT SOUNDS impressive, but more than half of that figure comes from the €1.95 billion Titanic grossed worldwide. Since then, Kate has made 28 films, with the 2015 futuristic Insurgent the most successful, taking €275 million at the box office.
Her biggest flop was 2006 political drama All The King’s Men. It cost €52million but took only €8 million. Surely that was nothing to do with her disastrous co-stars, Jude Law and Sean Penn?
Leo’s box office takings: €6.2 billion
LIKE Kate, Leo hasn’t equalled the success of Titanic with any of the 18 films he’s made since.
The closest is the 2010 sci-fi epic Inception, which took €766million, making it the 49th biggest-grossing film of all time (and most of that came from cinema-goers returning time and time again, desperately trying to understand the plot. They couldn’t).
Leo’s never appeared in an outand-out flop, but the closest is 2011’s biopic J Edgar — based on the life of the cross-dressing FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover — which didn’t clean up at the box office. It cost €32 million and took just €78 million. Winner: Leonardo
GONGS GALORE Kate’s award nominations: 27 Wins: Seven
SHE may not have the biggest female pay cheque in Hollywood but, given the amount of awards ceremonies she’s had to attend, Kate must by now have the biggest wardrobe.
She’s won an Oscar (for The Reader, in 2009), three Baftas (for Sense And Sensibility, Steve Jobs and The Reader) and three Golden Globes (again for The Reader, Steve Jobs and Revolutionary Road).
So that makes seven excruciating, tearful, faux-modest acceptance speeches from Kate. Funny, feels like more. . .
Leo’s award nominations: 20 Wins: Four
FINALLY! Finally! After being nominated for an Oscar four times (for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf Of Wall Street) and failing to take home the big prize, Leo was more sure of a win on Sunday than of finding a bevvy of beauties waiting in his hotel room.
He’s won Golden Globes for The Aviator, The Wolf Of Wall Street and The Revenant as well as a Bafta earlier this month for The Revenant.
Now Hollywood’s golden boy finally has a golden statue. Another bauble with which to impress the ladies . . . Winner: Kate
HOT PROPERTIES
Kate: €23 million
OK, NOBODY mention the house by the Thames in Surrey, South-East England, she bought in the 1990s that kept flooding every time the river rose by, oh, an inch.
After all, Kate learned from her watery mistakes and now lives in a €5 million eight-bedroom manor house...on the West Sussex coast. It’s there she keeps her Oscar (in the toilet, what a lark). Should this property ever flood, she can flee to her four-bedroom, five-bathroom duplex apartment in Chelsea, New York, now worth an estimated €18 million. Although she’d lose the €27,000 a month it rents out for when she’s not there.
Leo: €76 million
WITH Kate married to a Branson (Richard’s nephew, Ned), it seems our Leo’s been taking inspiration from the Virgin boss — and has bought his own island.
In 2005, he paid €1.5 million for the 104-acre Blackadore Caye off Belize, and — like on Branson’s Necker Island — he’s building an eco-resort on it, due to open in 2018.
That’s not all. When in LA, Leo’s main abode is a €35 million estate in the Hollywood Hills. It contains two properties, two swimming pools and a basketball court.
Obviously, that’s not enough so he’s also invested in other properties — a €15 million Malibu beachfront property (rented out for €45,000 per month), a €5.8million, seven-bedroom mansion in Palm Springs and two separate apartments in New York worth a combined €18 million.
Apparently he’s still deciding which of his many toilets to place his Oscar in. Winner: Leonardo
ENDORSEMENTS
Kate: €6.5 million
WHO’D have thought the girl so fat she was once nicknamed ‘Blubber’ would ever be the face of a cosmetics company?
Lancome — which Kate has endorsed since 2009 — isn’t even allowed to retouch her photos nowadays after GQ magazine caused a furore by dramatically slimming down her legs for a cover in 2003. Kate also promotes Longines luxury Swiss watches (average price tag, €1,800) in a deal worth around €1.3 million.
Leo: €12.5 million
FOR six years Leonardo has been ‘brand ambassador’ for TAG Heuer watches (average price tag, €2,600) in a €3.9 million deal.
He also has a €2.6 million deal to promote Jim Beam Whiskey in Japan, plus a €5.8million contract with Oppo, a Chinese electronics and telecomms company. Winner: Leonardo
LEADING MEN AND LADIES
Kate
DESPITE the luvvie-duvvie display on Sunday’s red carpet, Kate and Leo have never dated (‘He always saw me as one of the boys,’ she claimed, somewhat unbelievably given her topless scene in Titanic). Instead, she’s now a 3x3: three children by three different husbands.
The actress this week denied reports she is expecting her fourth child, sparked by Cate Blanchett patting her on the tummy at the Oscars.
Kate’s first husband was British film producer Jim Threapleton, whom she wed in 1998. They divorced three years later, soon after their daughter Mia (now 15) was born. Immediately, she began dating British film director Sam Mendes. They married in secret on Anguilla in May 2003 and divorced in 2011. They have a son, 13-year-old Joe. Kate has never taken her husbands’ surnames — thank goodness given she’s now married to Ned Rocknroll.
He was born plain old Ned Smith but changed it by deed poll. He works for his uncle’s firm, Virgin Galactic. After marrying in December 2012, the couple had a son called Bear Blaze, now two.
Leo
WE’LL keep this as short as possible (though you might like to put the kettle on).
Never-married Leo is the showbusiness world’s most eligible bachelor and there’s barely a supermodel in town he hasn’t dated.
His longest relationships — both six years (albeit on-and-off with rumours of other liaisons) — were with Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen and Israeli model Bar Refaeli.
Exes are rumoured to include Demi Moore, Paris Hilton and Naomi Campbell.
His most recent girlfriend was swimwear model Kelly Rohrbach, 26. He was even linked to two different women during his week in London for the Baftas — model Roxy Horner, 24, and TV presenter Laura Whitmore, 30.
But for Leo, there will only ever be one love of his life: his 73-year-old mum.
Winner: Kate
REAL-LIFE HEROICS
Kate
SHE was credited with saving the life of Richard Branson’s mother Eve during the blaze which ravaged Necker island in 2001.
The main house was set alight during a storm and everyone had to evacuate. Blinded by smoke, 90-year-old Eve was struggling down the stairs when brave Kate swept her to safety.
Heroic stuff indeed — although Eve rather put a dampener on the story when she revealed Kate only helped her down a few steps.
Leo
WORKING in Hollywood is like swimming with sharks, but Leo had a near-death experience with a real one a decade ago.
Filming Blood Diamond in South Africa, he was attacked by a Great White while scuba-diving.
He was inside a cage watching the killers from supposed safety when one took a shine to him.
Leo claims that a freak accident caused the shark to end up in the cage with him.
‘Half its body was in the cage and it was snapping at me,’ says Leo, who survived by crouching in the cage and keeping still until he was winched up.
After that, being attacked by a bear in The Revenant was a walk in the park. Winner: Leonardo