http://people.aol.com/people/970630/features/cover5.html

Whatever derailed the momentum toward that all-important walk,
everyone interviewed by PEOPLE agreed on one point: There is
virtually no possibility that Pitt was putting his charms to
work on another. "Brad is not a womanizer," says one friend,
"and he doesn't cheat. He always has one girlfriend." At worst
he has a tendency to fall in love -- one at a time -- with his
leading ladies. Among them: Jill Schoelen (Cutting Class, a
slasher pic), Robin Givens (he had a part on her sitcom Head of
the Class in 1988) and Juliette Lewis (Kalifornia). Nonetheless,
his relationship with Paltrow seems far more serious. "Brad
wouldn't get engaged lightly," says Janice Johnson, his former
high-school drama coach. "Brad is a pretty down-home basic boy."
That presumably was okay by Paltrow, even if hers is a more
genteel sensibility than Pitt's, with his love for country music
and beer. Her pedigree is impressive. Paltrow, whose father is
producer-director Bruce Paltrow (St. Elsewhere), was raised with
younger brother Jake bicoastally, with homes in Santa Monica and
on New York City's Upper East Side. She spent summers doing
regional theater with her mother, actress Blythe Danner, and the
school year attending Spence, an exclusive girls academy in
Manhattan.

More than anything, though, Paltrow is probably just a homebody
who wants a family--and Pitt by her side. For all the well-
documented nights out in Manhattan with Pitt, Paltrow has usually
emphasized the snugly domestic in their relationship. During a
typical day, she told E! online, "we hang out alone, read papers,
have coffee, watch Unsolved Mysteries or have friends over for
dinner and laugh and play Pictionary." And she has been quite
vocal about having children, even if that might mean putting her
career on hold. "I love acting," she told New York magazine.
"But it's not the most important thing to me."

Ironically, as their personal life has come unglued, their professional one has fallen in sync. In September the pair are scheduled to make their first movie together since Seven. But it won't be much of a reunion, either. They may have only one scene together in Duets, an oddball film about participants in karaoke contests, to be directed by Paltrow's father. Last week a nervous producer flew to New York City to make sure the couple were still in the cast. For now, yes, although as one agent puts it,"I
can't imagine suddenly not being engaged to someone and then going to make a movie with them."

But between now and the fall, romantics can only hope Pitt and Paltrow will overcome their differences. "I hope they work things out," says a Sliding Doors crew member. "Everyone likes a fairy-tale story."


-- TOM GLIATTO
-- BRYAN ALEXANDER in London, SUE MILLER in New York City, ANNE-MARIE OTEY and JEFFREY WELLS in Los Angeles and LUCHINA FISHER in Chicago