London - 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 on 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 Winslet shed a tear of joy as DiCaprio finally picked up his first Oscar – he won the Best Actor for his role in The Revenant – it showed how deep the bond they first forged on the set of Titanic all those years ago really was. Since then Winslet, now 40, and DiCaprio, 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?
Titanic wealth
Winslet: £64-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, she 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 £124m fortune – not that you’ll ever hear Kate complaining.
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 £2m per film, her biggest pay cheque to date was the £6m she netted for 2004’s Finding Neverland.
DiCaprio: £175m
Despite his fate in Titanic, DiCaprio’s managed to keep his financial head above the water far better than his co-star.
He’s the 13th richest actor in the world (although still some way behind the wealthiest movie star, Tom Cruise, who’s worth £300m).
But he’s been canny. While on paper his average salary of £14m 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 – £43m – as an actor and producer on the 2010 sci-fi thriller Inception. Not that DiCaprio’s all about the money…
In 2012, he agreed to star in his friend Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained for “just” £700 000.
Winner: DiCaprio
Hits and flops
Winslet’s box office takings: £2.8bn
Sounds impressive, but more than half of that figure comes from the £1.5b Titanic grossed worldwide.
Since then, Winslet has made 28 films, with last year’s futuristic Insurgent the most successful, making £212m at the box office.
Her biggest flop is the 2006 political drama All The King’s Men. It cost £40m to make but made only £6.7m.
Surely that was nothing to do with her disastrous co-stars, Jude Law and Sean Penn?
undefined
DiCaprio’s box office takings: £4.8b
Like Winslet, DiCaprio 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 made £590m, 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 of the confusing film. They couldn’t).
DiCaprio has never appeared in an out-and-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 well at the box office. It cost £25m and made just £60m.
Winner: DiCaprio
Gongs galore
Winslet’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, Winslet must by now have the biggest wardrobe.
She’s won an Oscar (for The Reader), 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 Winslet. Funny, feels like more…
DiCaprio’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, DiCaprio was more sure of a win on Sunday than he was 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 last month, also for The Revenant.
Now Hollywood’s golden boy finally has a golden statue. Another bauble with which to impress the ladies…
Winner: Winslet
Hot properties
Winslet: £18m
Okay, nobody mention the Thames-side house she bought in the 90s that kept flooding every time the river rose by 2cm.
After all, Winslet learned from her watery mistakes and now lives in a £4m eight-bedroom, Grade II-listed manor house… on the West Sussex coast. It’s there that 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 £14m – although she’d lose the £21 000 a month it rents out for when she’s not there.
DiCaprio: £58.7m
With Winslet married to a Branson (Richard’s nephew, Ned), it seems DiCaprio’s been taking inspiration from the Virgin boss – and has bought his own island. In 2005, he paid £1.2m for the 42ha 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, DiCaprio’s main abode is a £27m 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 £12m Malibu beachfront property (rented out for £35 000 per month), a £4.5m, seven-bedroom mansion in Palm Springs and two separate apartments in New York worth a combined £14m.
Apparently he’s still deciding which of his many toilets to place his Oscar in.
Winner: DiCaprio
Endorsements
Winslet: £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 Winslet 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. Winslet also promotes Longine’s luxury Swiss watches (average price tag at £1 400) in a deal worth around £1m.
DiCaprio: £9.5m
For six years, DiCaprio has been “brand ambassador” for TAG Heuer watches (average price tag at £2 000) in a £3m deal.
He also has a £2m deal to promote Jim Beam Whiskey in Japan, plus a £4.5m contract with Oppo, a Chinese electronics and telecomms company.
Winner: DiCaprio
Leading men and ladies
Winslet
Despite the luvvie display on Sunday’s red carpet, Winslet and DiCaprio 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 denied reports she is expecting her fourth child, sparked by Cate Blanchett patting her on the tummy at the Oscars.
Winslet’s first husband was British film producer Jim Threapleton, whom she wed in 1998 and divorced three years later, soon after their daughter Mia was born.
Immediately, she began dating film director Sam Mendes. They married in secret in Anguilla in May 2003 and divorced in 2011. They have one son together, 13-year-old Joe.
Winslet has never taken her husband’s surname – thank goodness given she’s now married to Ned Rocknroll.
He was born as 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.
DiCaprio
We’ll keep this as short as possible (though you might like to put the kettle on).
Never-married DiCaprio 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 DiCaprio, there will only ever be one love of his life: his 73-year-old mom.
Winner: Winslet
Real-life heroics
Winslet
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 Winslet swept her to safety.
Heroic stuff indeed – although Eve rather put a dampener on the story when she revealed Winslet only helped her down a few steps.
DiCaprio
Working in Hollywood is like swimming with sharks, but DiCaprio 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.
DiCaprio 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 DiCaprio, 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: DiCaprio
Daily Mail