The name’s Mendes... Mrs Mendes
Bond director weds glamorous trumpeter ... with a hush-hush blessing at country church
IT was a mission carried out with the utmost discretion.
James Bond director Sam Mendes has quietly married classical musician Alison Balsom.
Their plans were so secret some friends did not even know that Mendes, 51, was engaged to the glamorous 38year-old trumpeter.
‘The couple had a blessing,’ said the Reverend Ginny Thomas, who conducted the church service at the weekend at St Michael and All Angels, in the village of Great Tew, Oxfordshire.
‘The wedding had been held previously at a register office. That’s all I can say.’
Mendes, who directed the most recent James Bond films Skyfall and Spectre and won an Oscar in 1999 for American Beauty, was married to actress Kate Winslet from 2003 to 2011. He and the Titanic star, 41, have a 13year-old son, Joe.
Miss Balsom separated in 2011 from her long-term boyfriend Edward Gardner, 42, the top conductor and a former
‘It’s the talk of the village’
music director of the English National Opera, with whom she has a six-yearold son, Charlie.
The Daily Mail disclosed last October that Mendes was enjoying a romance with Balsom.
The couple were reported to be moving into a house the trumpeter had bought for £1.9million by the seaside in Dorset.
‘It’s the talk of the village,’ one of their new neighbours said at the time.
‘They have moved here because Alison loves sailing and is keen to teach Sam.’
Miss Balsom, a builder’s daughter, bought the 300-year-old former rectory in her name alone. The detached fourbedroom home is just a few hundred yards from the beach.
Yesterday a spokesman for Mendes told the Mail: ‘I can confirm Sam and Alison are married.’
Last November, Cambridge-educated Mendes accompanied Miss Balsom to Buckingham Palace, where she collected an OBE for services to music from Prince Charles. Mendes was awarded a CBE in 2000.
The director split up with Hollywood actress Rebecca Hall in 2015. Before his marriage to Oscar-winning Miss Winslet he had dated fellow Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart.
Balsom, who attended a comprehensive school in Hertfordshire, has spoken in the past about her fight to prove herself because she is a woman in the very male-dominated brass section.
‘I’ve always played the trumpet. And I’ve always been a girl,’ she told the Mail in 2009. ‘Orchestral brass players can be very macho, with an intimidating group mentality.’
She added: ‘I’ve got this thing about not showing too much leg, not being too girlie, when I’m playing the trumpet. Anyway, it wouldn’t be appropriate for the Haydn.’
Yesterday Balsom’s spokesman said she did not wish to comment further about the wedding.