Last night, I watched the season finale of Age of Love. If you missed the show, it featured 31-year-old tennis star Mark Philippoussis as a single man looking for love. The catch of the show was that they brought in 13 eligible bachelorettes for him to choose from – six in their twenties (dubbed the kittens) and seven in their forties (dubbed the cougars). The show was supposed to show that age meant nothing. Well, in the end, apparently age did mean something. Mark picked 25-year-old Amanda Salinas over 48 year old Jen Braff.
Regardless of the results of that show (which to me were disappointing), I started thinking about real life cougars. Remember when then 43-year-old Demi Moore married then 27-year-old Ashton Kutcher? That raised a few eyebrows! There was also some talk when Madonna married writer and director Guy Ritchie, who is ten years younger than she is. But, who may have led the cougar revolution? Believe it or not, Dinah Shore! Back in the 70s, when older women/younger men relationships were generally viewed as taboo, Dinah landed one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors – Burt Reynolds. The two had a long romance despite the fact that Burt was almost 20 years younger than Dinah.
Cher is another celebrity often been labeled as a cougar. In the mid-70s, she divorced her older husband Sonny and began seeing younger men. She was briefly married to Gregg Allman (who was only one year younger than she was), but by the mid-80s, 40 year old Cher was dating Rob Camiletti, who was 18 years her junior.
But, it goes back even further than that. What about Lana Turner? She was only four years older than gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato, but back in the late 50s when they dated, that was almost unheard of. Of course, any commotion about the age difference in that affair was over once Stompanato was found murdered in Turner’s home. Hum, that sounds like that would be a good blog for later!