The Most Iconic Celebrity Couples of the 1960s

We remember the ‘60s for the music, fashion and freedom. And the drug-fueled love affairs. But that's not to say romance didn’t exist. So here are the most iconic celebrity couples of the 1960s...

Sonny and Cher

Cherilyn Sarkisian met Salvatore Bono when she was only 16. (He was 27.) But at that time, when they first crossed paths at a party, Bono had little interest in her. "I was with my girlfriend, who was really beautiful," Cher said. "He liked her, so he didn’t really say anything to me." Regardless, Sonny and Cher began dating shortly thereafter (and moved in together immediately).

Sonny and Cher

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] In 1964, the duo released "Baby Don’t Go," their first single under the name Sonny and Cher, which they followed up with their biggest hit, "I Got You Babe" the following year. The couple married in 1964 but divorced a decade later, simultaneously dissolving both their personal and their professional relationship.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

When Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton first met on the set of the film "Cleopatra" in 1962, they were both married to other people. Taylor, at that point, was on her fourth husband. But Burton nd Taylor began an affair that lasted into 1964, when they divorced their respective partners and married each other.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

Taylor and Burton had one of the most passionate relationships in Hollywood, but that passion wasn’t always of the romantic variety. They fought constantly, and in 1974 they divorced — for the first time. They would remarry in 1975, only to file for divorce a second time the following year.

Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Marianna Faithfull was a singer-songwriter in 1964 with one big hit under her belt. Mick Jagger was the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. Shortly after her 1965 marriage to John Dunbar and the birth of their only child, Faithfull left Dunbar to live with Jagger.

Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull

It'd be an understatement to say that Faithfull's relationship with Jagger was unconventional. The two are rumored to have frequently shared sexual encounters with Rolling Stones member Keith Richards and his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, who was Faithfull’s best friend. Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward first met on the set of a stage play in 1953. At the time, Newman was still married to his first wife, so he and Woodward became friends and nothing more. But in 1957, Newman filed for divorce. He married Woodward in 1958.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Newman and Woodward stayed married for 50 years, until Newman died in 2008. Their marriage was one of those enviable, one-of-a-kind ones, built of "some combination of lust and respect and patience. And determination," according to Newman.

Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski

In late 1965, Sharon Tate was an up-and-coming actress who had just landed her first big role in "Eye of the Devil." She met with Roman Polanski, who cast her in his film "The Fearless Vampire Killers," but the two butted heads on set initially. Polanski had little patience for Tate's inexperience.

Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski

Eventually, tensions eased between Tate and Polanski. They began a relationship, moving in together by the time filming ended. They got married in 1968, although Polanski continued to sleep with other women.

Tate’s murder in 1969 devastated Polanski. Forty-five years after her death, he wrote, "Even after so many years, I find myself unable to watch a spectacular sunset or visit a lovely old house or experience visual pleasure of any kind without instinctively telling myself how much she would have loved it all. ... In these ways I shall remain faithful to her till the day I die."

Elvis and Priscilla Presley

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Elvis Presley was a decade older than 14-year-old Priscilla Wagner in 1959, when they met at a party while he was serving in the U.S. Army in West Germany. When he returned to the States, the two started up a relationship, and Priscilla moved to Memphis for him in 1963.

Elvis and Priscilla Presley

Elvis and Priscilla married in May 1967 in a famously brief eight-minute ceremony at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The relationship was rocky from the start and, by February 1972, the couple had separated, divorcing finally in 1973.

John and Jackie Kennedy

In May 1952, 35-year-old future President of the United States John F. Kennedy met 23-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier at a dinner party in Washington, D.C. He fell for her immediately. "I've never met anyone like her," he said at the time. In September of the following year, they married.

John and Jackie Kennedy

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] JFK and Kackie had four children between 1956 and 1963, two of them dying during infancy. After the death of their first child, and on account of John’s affairs (which famously included Marilyn Monroe), Jackie apparently considered divorce. But they remained together until his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller

In 1951, when Marilyn Monroe met Arthur Miller on the set of "As Young as You Feel," Miller was the more famous of the two — he had recently won a Pulitzer for "Death of a Salesman." But it would be several years  (and a couple of other marriages) before the two wound up together.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller

Monroe and Miller wed in 1956, and they stayed together until 1961, a year before she died. They were seemingly a mismatched pair, dubbed "the Hourglass and the Egghead." But Miller saw more depth in Monroe than many others, and Monroe was attracted to Miller's intellect.

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Jane Berkin was a model, actress and singer in mid-1968 when she met the legendary French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg on the set of the film "Slogan." The pair performed together on the film’s theme song, "La Chanson de Slogan," which would be the first of their many collaborations.

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg

Birkin and Gainsbourg remained together for over a decade, and their relationship would go on to define each other even after they had separated. According to Birkin, "That’s what happens when you are with a great man. He was a great man. I was just pretty."

Brigitte Bardot and Gunter Sachs

The love affair between French screen goddess Brigitte Bardot and German playboy millionaire Gunter Sachs began when Sachs had a helicopter drop hundreds of roses over Bardot’s Cote d’Azur backyard in May 1966. They married in a Las Vegas ceremony two months later.

Brigitte Bardot and Gunter Sachs

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] The relationship between Bardot and Sachs was short-lived. In their three years of marriage, they were together rarely. They didn’t even have keys to each other’s apartments. And both were notoriously unfaithful. According to Bardot, "I cheated on Gunter, of course, and he was unfaithful too, a lot more than I was."

Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey

In 1967, Jean Shrimpton was described as the "world’s highest-paid model." But when she met photographer David Bailey at a photo shoot in 1960, she was completely unknown. The two would influence each other’s lives in many ways.

Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey

Shrimpton and Bailey began dating shortly after their initial meeting in 1960. Bailey, who was married at the time, left his wife nine months later to be with Shrimpton. She has credited him with making her career as a model, while his work with her helped him rise to fame as a photographer.

Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Royal Ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn was 42 and considering retirement when she first met Rudolf Nureyev, a former Kirov Ballet dancer who was 19 years her junior. From the moment he arrived in London, Nureyev insisted on dancing with her. She agreed reluctantly, and the two forged an incredibly successful partnership.

Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev

Fonteyn went to her grave having denied a sexual relationship ever existed between the two, but says they shared a deep connection. “…strange attachment formed between us… which, in a way, one could describe as a deep affection, or love… But the fact remains that Rudolf was desperately in love with someone else at the time.”