Take two people and make them actors who sometimes work together, and sometimes don’t. Give the actress four prior marriages. Plop them down in the middle of Hollywood, and make their careers take off. And then? Make them fall in love.

It doesn’t really sound like a recipe for romance success, now does it? While the above scenario might lend itself to a movie script with sweeping scenes on a beach, stirring musical scores and plot twists galore, it’s not traditionally the basis for a relationship that will last past the closing credits.

After all, anybody who’s ever so much as glanced at a gossip magazine cover in the grocery store checkout line can tell you that of all the places in the world two people could try to make a marriage work, Hollywood is the probably the hardest. And any married couple can tell you that the long-lasting commitment is tricky enough on its own without the added pressures of paparazzi, demanding schedules and expensive temptations.

Yet every so often a couple comes along to defy the odds, and their success is inspiring to both famous and “regular” folks everywhere. Today’s inspiration? Sam Elliot and Katharine Ross!

You know Elliot from his voice work as “Smokey the Bear” and roles in The Legacy, Tombstone, The Big Lebowski and countless television guest spots, while Ross is probably familiar to you from classics like The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Stepford Wives. But you’d be forgiven for not knowing that the two were even together— and they’ve been married for 33 years!

While they’ve consistently appeared together on red carpets over the years, the couple has kept a low profile throughout their marriage, avoiding the drama that so often befalls other Hollywood pairs. (Perhaps Ross learned from her previous four short marriages before finding lasting love with Elliot.) Despite their success making fictional stories, the husband-and-wife know that REAL marriages take true work. As Elliot told AARP Magazine:

We have a common sensibility, but we also work at being together. You work past the s–t; you don’t walk away from it. That’s how relationships last.

Simple but true advice!

Part of that work includes the give-and-take of supporting each other’s careers while also investing in the relationship, something Elliot and Ross seem have to known how to do since the very beginning. Good Housekeeping reports that Elliot almost turned down one of his early breakout roles, in the movie Mask with Cher, because the screen test for the part would interfere with their honeymoon. Ross, however, had other ideas:

Elliott nearly passed on his breakout role as Cher’s biker boyfriend in the 1985 film Mask because he and Ross were on their honeymoon in Hawaii, according to the New York Times. After Elliott told his agent he wouldn’t return early to test for the role, Ross called the agent back that night to say she’d get her husband back in time.

Ross must have sensed the role would be a turning point for Elliott. As the Los Angeles Times stated in 1985, “His portrayal of the compassionate biker Gar has received nearly as much critical attention as the performances by the film’s stars, Eric Stoltz and Cher.”

Now that’s love and support!

To learn more about this long-lasting Hollywood couple and how Elliot says they make it work, check out the video from Country Living below. Turns out, this pair met a little while before they actually met – it make sense, we promise – and the story is incredibly endearing. Check it out!

What do you think of this classic, yet under-the-radar, Hollywood pair? Are you a fan of Ross or Elliot? What other famous couples are great examples of lasting love?