LOVE LOST

As a couple, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow appeared to have
it all -- romance, elegance and stardom. So where did their
love go?

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Only yesterday, it seems, Gwyneth Paltrow was madly, passionately,
head-over-her-Prada-heels in love with her fiance, Brad Pitt.

Honoring their policy never to be apart for more than two weeks, the
24-year-old actress, based in London while filming Sliding Doors, a
whimsical comedy-drama due this November, beamed with her betrothed
at local clubs, gazed into his blue eyes at a British Oscars party
at the Savoy Hotel and, on a romantic getaway in Paris, held his
hand as they strolled along the Seine. "She was incredibly close to
Brad," says one member of the crew. "She was talking about him all
the time." Only when Pitt, 33, had jetted back to his Los Angeles
home or to their shared Manhattan apartment did his willowy bride-to-
be appear to wilt a little. Off the set she drank coffee out of a mug
emblazoned with Pitt's likeness. She glanced often at her engagement
ring, a band with four diamonds--one large and three tiny stones--
chosen by Pitt. "She would say, `I need my Brad to be with me today,
I am really missing him,' " says the crew member. By the film's wrap
party at the end of May, Paltrow -- who had turned down a plum role
in the big-screen version of The Avengers (opposite Ralph Fiennes) to
be closer to her fiance -- was more than ready to head home. "She was
very, very keen to get back to Brad," says the crew member. "She was
saying that she couldn't wait."

Talk about a change of plans -- not to mention heart. On June 16,
Pitt's publicist Cindy Guagenti announced that Hollywood's golden
couple had called an abrupt end to their 2-year romance: "They have
been broken up for a couple of weeks now," she told the New York Post.
"It's not because of any one specific event." A source close to both
added, "It's a real relationship with real problems. This is not about
any third party. This is absolutely between the two of them." Even in
a town where love is as unpredictable as opening-day grosses, the
revelation came as a shock. What other celebrity couple in recent
years seemed so fresh, so guilelessly in love -- so like "a happy
Romeo and Juliet," as one friend put it last year? "Oh, it's too sad,"
says L.A. hairdresser-to-the-stars Laurent, who cut Paltrow's hair just
before she left for London in February. "They were so much in love the
day they were here. He was holding her hand the whole time. They were
looking at her [engagement] ring.

Of course, in retrospect, there are always signs, however subtle.
Although the hush-hush wedding was rumored to be set for late summer
in East Hampton, N.Y., one person familiar with the couple's plans
says it never--despite a trip by Paltrow to wedding-dress designer
Vera Wang in New York City--even got to the planning stage. And London
celebrity photographer Nikos spotted the couple making a fast, glum
exit into a white Mercedes limousine from a London nightspot several
weeks ago. "Something went wrong," Nikos says. Paltrow was later
spotted in the car, being consoled by Pitt.

Pitt, who's filming a comedy-fantasy, Meet Joe Black, in New York
City, was seen carousing solo with a group of male friends at a party
at a photographer's studio on June 12 -- four days before news of his
split became public. "Brad actually looked really happy, smiling and
enjoying himself," says one guest. "It was noticed by everyone Gwyneth
wasn't there."

With Pitt staying in their Manhattan place and Paltrow bunking with a
friend, an intimate of the couple's says they are still talking
regularly. But don't expect to see them at such favorite haunts as the
restaurant Villa Mosconi or the honky-tonk Hogs &Heifers. Paltrow, for
her part, has been keeping out of view. Though she accepted an
invitation to attend the June 17 New York City premiere of Julia
Roberts's new comedy, My Best Friend's Wedding, she didn't show.
According to a friend of Pitt's, the actress is "stunned and devastated."

The reason, says Pitt's friend, is because the decision was, in fact,
more one-sided than Guagenti claims. "Brad called it off," the source
insists. "He changed his mind about a month ago. He got caught up in
the frenzy of getting married, but he really didn't want to. He hasn't
had a second to think about what's going on."

"He's commitment-shy," surmises another Pitt acquaintance. "He needs
to figure out what he wants."An intimate of the actor's, however, says
"he was full-speed-ahead with the wedding. He did want to get married,
and now he's upset." And at least one person close to both performers
dismisses the idea of unilateral action by Pitt as "absolutely not
true." It is a "true and deeply felt love," adds this person, that is
being tested by "a bumpy time." Paltrow is herself "optimistic," this
source adds, that the split may not be final. Pitt's brother Doug, 30,
who owns a computer-service company in the actor's hometown of
Springfield, Mo., would say only, "Of course there's sadness. They're
both great people."

Indeed, in the beginning, it seemed like destiny had brought the
enchanted pair together. The two fell in love on the set of the
grisly murder thriller Seven, where, by unpleasant irony, Paltrow
played Pitt's doomed wife. The actress, previously linked with actors
Donovan Leitch and Robert Sean Leonard, at first resisted her costar's
killer chemistry (he was PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive in 1995). "And then
I started getting a crush on him," she told the Los Angeles Times last
August. "I'm like, `Are you sane? You can't get a crush on Brad Pitt.
Get hold of yourself.' " Pitt, on the other hand, was smitten from the
start. When he grabbed his Golden Globe trophy for his performance in
12 Monkeys in 1996, he thanked her as "my angel."

The couple seemed blissful whether in high society (they went to the
White House for a screening of Emma) or low (she danced for him on the
bar at Hogs &Heifers). They finally became engaged -- after months of
speculation -- when she visited him last December in Argentina, where
he was shooting a historical story, Seven Years in Tibet. Then at
Christmas he took her home to meet his father, Bill Pitt, who used
to own a trucking company, and his mother, Jane, a school counselor.
(In celebration of their anticipated union, the family dined at the
local Red Lobster.) Just two months ago, Pitt rhapsodized to Rolling
Stone as he envisioned their wedding day. "I can't wait, man," he
said, ". . . walk down the aisle, wear the ring, kiss the bride. Oh,
it's going to be great."