The history of Hollywood is littered with successful double acts, co-stars who have made dozens of high-grossing movies together and who still managed to remain friends when the cameras stopped rolling.
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were the stars of the popular Road to… series of films, along with their glamorous side-kick, Dorothy Lamour. Hope and Crosby made seven Road to… movies between 1940 and 1962, ad-libbing a lot of the comedic dialogue themselves during filming.
The golden couple of Hollywood’s golden age was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, who made ten musicals together between 1933 and 1949. Their iconic dance routines choreographed to iconic tunes composed by Irving Berlin and George Gershwin are among the best moments in Hollywood history.
Comedians Lou Abbot and Bud Costello were the most prolific Hollywood double act, making 36 movies together in just 16 years between 1940 and 1956. Their quick-fire comedy patter made them a huge success with TV and movie audiences, and their routines have inspired generations of comedians since.
But for every double act who have made magic on the silver screen, there is another who had to endure working with an actor they loathed being around. It’s not easy to create onscreen chemistry with someone you hate, but did any of these co-stars manage to do it?
10. Harrison Ford And Josh Hartnett
Hollywood Homicide was one of Harrison Ford’s less-than-successful films. The 2003 cop buddy movie co-starred Josh Hartnett as the young officer taken under Ford’s more experienced wing. Perhaps part of the reason the film bombed so badly at the box office was because of the fact that the two leads had zero on screen chemistry. The two apparently fell out so violently while making the movie that they even refused to maintain eye contact even while they were filming! Ford referred to Hartnett as a “punk” while the younger man didn’t hold back either, calling the iconic actor “an old fart.”
9. Gillian Anderson And David Duchovny
You’d have a hard time naming a more iconic TV duo than Mulder and Scully from the X-Files, yet the actors who played the roles, David Duchovny and Gillian Mulder, actually had a notoriously difficult working relationship. However, was this because the two genuinely disliked each other or because of the stresses involved in 16-hour-a-day film shoots with the same person? Certainly, Anderson’s description of the relationship as being like a “marriage” suggests that they got on most of the time, while also having their difficult moments. Duchovny has described Anderson as a “perfectionist” while Anderson was even more blunt, describing her co-star as a “pain in the arse.”
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