While Gwyneth was tackling arithmetic as an elementary student
at the tony Spence School, Pitt--then a University of Missouri
journalism major and Sigma Chi fraternity boy--was knocking
back beers with his buddies. When he got his first big break,
in 1987--a five-episode stint on Dallas--the 12-year-old
Paltrow was a several-year veteran of summer productions at
the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

And yet, by the time they began work on the L.A. set of Seven
last December, the two were ready for each other--her upper
crust the perfect complement to his humble pie. The electricity
between them, says Morgan Freeman, "was real." To an extent,
Paltrow was able to take Pitt's mind off his other worries:
namely, the stud-muffin image that has stuck to him since he
seduced, then robbed, Geena Davis's character in 1991's Thelma
& Louise. "Beefcakes," he has noted, "are a dime a dozen."

But shucking that image hasn't been easy. On the downtown L.A.
set of Seven, so many women wanted to peek at Pitt that the
crew had to erect barricades. Meanwhile, during the Philadelphia-
based shoot for Monkeys, radio stations conducted "Brad watches"--
complete with prizes for anyone who managed to sneak into his
hotel room and swipe something, anything, belonging to the actor.
(Apparently no one took up the challenge.) Eager to deglamorize
himself, Pitt told Monkeys director Gilliam that he wanted to
wear brown contact lenses to mask his baby blues. The director
agreed, though Gilliam says he doesn't think Pitt fans will be
fooled. "It's like he's caught in a body owned by the public,"
says Gilliam. "He's been sold as the hot new bimbo. But he knows
there's more to him. He doesn't want to feel trapped by people's
expectations."

Once Gilliam accepted him for the part, Pitt made sure to deliver.
"He threw himself into the role," says producer Charles Roven. In
order to better play a manic-depressive, the actor spent two weeks
in group-therapy sessions in a Philadelphia hospital and checked
into a psychiatric ward for a day; only the ward director knew who
Pitt was. "He was fully in character," says Roven. "He is a
perfectionist." Through it all, Paltrow, who was preparing to
shoot the forthcoming films The Pallbearer and Emma, provided
support. Says Roven: "She keeps him straight and aware of reality."

The couple got a crash course on just how unpleasant celebrity-
style reality can be last April. While they were vacationing in
St. Bart's, a photographer used a telephoto lens to capture Pitt
and Paltrow sunbathing--privately, they believed--in the nude. To
their mortification, the shots were published in European magazines
and on the Internet, available for downloading worldwide. Pitt has
filed suit in France against the photographer, the photo agency and
two French publications. "Iwonder about the rights of privacy," he
told Us magazine. But otherwise Pitt wants to move past the
embarrassing shots. Said he: "Imean, it all ends up in the litter
box anyway."

The fact is, Pitt and Paltrow have better things to focus on. Like
sinking the eight ball at Hogs and Heifers, a country-music bar in
Manhattan's meat-packing district where women sling their bras on
the resident buffalo head, the Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil
Went Down to Georgia" blares loud and the Harleys are parked in a
row outside. "Brad knows every word on the jukebox," says owner
Alan Dell. "He was howlin' and hootin' when my wife, Michelle, was
teaching Gwyneth to two-step on the bartop."

Evenings often find the pair nuzzling privately: holding hands over
dinner at Villa Mosconi, an intimate Italian restaurant not far
from Paltrow's Greenwich Village apartment, or playfully embracing
as they wait on line to buy a late-night snack at the nearby Opera
Deli. But when daylight comes, the two turn to more serious tasks,
like finding a home for Pitt in Manhattan, where he just finished
work on his next film, Sleepers, a crime drama co-starring Robert
De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. So deep is his bond to the East Coast-
based Paltrow that he has all but abandoned the L.A. home he bought
in 1994 and decorated with copper walls and antique Arts and Crafts
furniture. "I just saw Brad," says casting director Schulman. "He
told me, `I'm homeless.' "

What the future will bring--in real estate or in romance--is
anyone's guess. Paltrow's 10-year plan: "Hopefully," she told
Interview magazine in September, "I'll be married, with three or
four children." Last month, Pitt gave USA Today a similar 10-year
scenario: "Married with bambinos and at home." For now, though,
both are living for the moment--his contribution, it seems, to the
Paltrow-Pitt pact: She nudges him to pick up the clothes he is wont
to leave strewn on the floor; he eases what she has called her
neurotic tendencies.

"[My] happiest day," Paltrow said recently, "was with Brad at a
little coffee shop. We woke up late and were having a lazy morning,
and we went around the corner and had these big bowls of latte and
sat there all sleepy."

Nodding in his java--or scooping up after his gal pal's pooch, for
that matter--may not constitute the High Romance the public expects
from Pitt, but the picture of domestic bliss makes perfect sense to
his friends. "There's depth to him that people don't suspect," says
his True Romance costar Christian Slater. "As a guy he's pretty
grounded; he's funny, just all right." This year, call him the
Luckiest Man Alive--and Paltrow the Luckiest Woman. Or maybe it's
time to give the hype a rest. "Everybody tries to inflate him,"
says Gilliam. "But he doesn't need to be inflated. He's good, solid
stuff, our Brad."

-- KAREN S. SCHNEIDER

-- NANCY JO SALES in New York City, TODD GOLD, CAROLYN RAMSAY,
TOM CUNNEFF and BETTY CORTINA in Los Angeles and BONNIE BELLin Chicago


-- PHOTOS Top-Bill Davila Retna Ltd., Second from top-Tim Rooke Rex
USA, Third from top-Philip Caruso Universal, Bottom-Steve Granitz
Retna Ltd.