Even though Michelle had a fancier degree, a more stable childhood and a higher-paying job, she also had the smarts to say yes when asked out by her law firm’s pushy summer associate. Maybe she sensed even then that he had terrific taste in houses—and would someday call her “my rock.”
Sure, he was smart enough to build a world-class company. But what was truly visionary for the founder of Microsoft was picking a wife who’d help him share his heart and his bank account with needy people around the world.
The Angelina Jolie of guys, Steven Spielberg has raised a blended-in-every-way family of seven kids with actress-wife Kate Capshaw while, oh yeah, running Hollywood (movies and TV), earning billions and directing two new films that are due out this Christmas.
When he’s not busy protecting us from alien invasions and/or making us howl with laughter, Smith has logged serious family time with wife Jada Pinkett Smith (and created some seriously amazing children).
This year’s Oscar-winning Best Actor is such an unpretentious guy that his Italian wife’s non-English-speaking family originally didn’t even know he was a movie heartthrob. Of the skinny-as-a-pipecleaner look for Hollywood women, he’s said, “It’s not attractive, it’s not healthy and it’s not sexy.”
He’s played funny with Julia Louis Dreyfus on The New Adventures of Old Christine, suicidal on In Treatment and presidential in his current series, The Event, getting older but way sexier along the way—no doubt to the delight of Desiree Dacosta, his wife of nearly 20 years, mother of their three kids and designated tugger of the Underwood underpants.
At his wedding to Posh Spice, this otherwise macho soccer player (whom the Brits call Golden Balls) let her skip all that stuff about obeying. And as if that isn’t sensitive enough: By ceremony’s end, he wept real tears of joy. For shared fashion fun, the two drive matching Jags and even own matching Rottweilers. Now Posh is pregnant again, with their first baby girl. Awww.
An Oscar winner in 2010 (for Crazy Heart), he was nominated again this year but lost to Colin Firth. Why he’ll always be a winner in our book: because of his family-loving acceptance speech, in which he said, “I especially want to thank my gorgeous wife, Sue; we've been married 33 years. We have a beautiful family. Three girls, Isabelle, Jessie and Hayley. Thank you, guys. I wouldn't be up here without you." Now, that’s true grit.
Living proof that a bad boy can be a good partner, he’s spent the last 13 years with French singer Vanessa Paradis, with whom he has two children. How has he managed such an un-Hollywood track record? Dividing their time among a palazzo in Venice, a vineyard near Nice and an island in the Bahamas probably helps.
Single mom Luciana Barroso goes to work one night at a Miami bar, meets a movie star and ends up marrying him. Three daughters later, Damon says, “She’s been pregnant basically for more than half of the last five years and she’s been nursing the other half, so I’ve definitely asked about as much as I can from my wife. Now I’m all hers!” Change this chick’s name to Cinderella.
The junior senator from Massachusetts, a pickup-driving Tea Party candidate who captured the late Ted Kennedy’s seat in early 2010, has made the most of his looks. He helped pay for law school by modeling—which not only led him to his wife, TV reporter Gail Huff, but also to a nude (well, nude-ish) Cosmopolitan centerfold. Definitely our cup of, well, tea.
For more "Men We Love," see our April 2011 issue on newsstands March 22.
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