A study of all the Best Actress winners has revealed that they were more likely to end up divorced than others who had been nominated but failed to win a gold statuette.
Researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada found that female winners of the top acting award have a 63 per cent chance of having a shorter marriage than non winners.
Bad omen: Kate Winselt with her then-husband Sam Mendes with her Best Actress Oscar in 2009. Her marriage ended a year later
British star Kate Winslet, Sandra Bullock and Hilary Swank are all among the most recent winners who saw their careers hit new heights but their personal lives go in the opposite direction.
A year after winning the Best Actress award playing a concentration camp guard in The Reader in 2009 her marriage to director Sam Mendes ended.
It was the same story for Sandra Bullock and Hillary Swank.
Sandra Bullock with husband Jesse James last year aftershe scooped top honours for her role in The Blind Side. She split from Jesse months later
A year after her Oscar win in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby her marriage to actor Chad Low ended.
Bullock's five year marriage famously imploded just days after her Oscar win for The Blind Side when she discovered her husband had been having an affair with a tattoo model.
The indepth study of the 'Oscar's curse' found that of the 265 married women who have been nominated for Best Actress from the beginning of the modern Oscars in 1936 to the present, 159 of them got divorced - a staggering 60 per cent.
They also compared the divorce rate of women who were nominated for Best Actress but didn’t win against those who did take home the gold, and found that the winners were 1.68 times more likely to head to the divorce court.
A year after her Oscar win in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby, Hillary Swank's marriage to actor Chad Low ended
However, a study of Best Actor winners found that there was virtually no change to their marital status - a fact that will cheer Colin Firth as he is odds on favourite to win this year's award for 'The King's Speech.
The researchers at the University of Toronto did not analyse in detail the reason for the marriage breaks ups.
But lead researcher Tiziana Casciaro said a woman's sudden elevation to fame and fortune could have an effect on a husband or partner.
'Winning an Oscar can be construed as a big jump in professional status that an actor or actress has in their world and in the eyes of the broader audience,' said Casciaro.
' You are never the same after you’ve secured an Oscar for Best actor or Best Actress.
“The general social norm kind of requires a man to have higher professional and economic status over the wife.
'So whenever that social norm is violated, both husband and wife may feel discomfort—could be either one of them.
'We know from other situations that the strain that marriages feel under that circumstance is not unusual and people try to overcome it in a variety of different ways.'
While many of the modern female stars have headed to the divorce court soon after their victory, stars from Hollywood's heyday started the trend.
Among the first was Joan Crawford who divorced her third husband in 1946 a year after winning an Oscar for 'Mildred Pierce'.
More recently Julia Roberts took home the Oscar for Erin Brockovich and thanked boyfriend Benjamin Bratt in her speech. Three months later, they were over.
The following year Halle Berry became the first black woman to win an Oscar for 'Monster's Ball' and a year later she left husband Eric Benet.
And in 2004 Oscar-winning Charlize Theron promised that she and actor boyfriend Stuart Townsend would never wed until gay marriage was legal.
Eight months later they split up. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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