The only time they ever seem to break the mould is when said civilians are looking across them from behind a bar or taking their order. George Clooney is a serial dater of service industry workers.

Back in 1996, there was French waitress Celine Balitran and his current squeeze is cocktail waitress Sarah Larson.

Matt Damon met his wife Luciana when she was pulling pints (or whatever they do in Florida) at Miami Beach's Crobar and Nicholas Cage married his sushi waitress Alice Kim, five months after they met.

And while she's not a waitress, Chris O'Donnell's wife has a rather unstarry occupation, being a primary school teacher.

Now, it must be pointed out all of the ladies in question are extremely beautiful but they're not in the major league like George's exes (Julia Roberts and Renee Zellwegger) or Matt's (Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver) or Nicholas' (Patricia Arquette and Lisa Marie Presley).

While another celeb partner might be understanding of the pressures that A-list living brings (never getting fat; endlessly repeating one's self in interview; not having any real grip on reality like knowing the price of a loaf of bread), the strain of having two massive egos in a relationship might have proved a little too much for these people. Interestingly, there aren't so many cases of female celebrities doing likewise. There's Drew Barrymore, of course, who married Welsh barman Jeremy Thomas at a 5am ceremony and divorced him a month later. Apart from that? Cindy Crawford's husband who is involved in the food and drinks industry but as the extremely rich owner/operator of a chain of bars and lounges, it's not strictly comparable.

Maybe they want a nice dose of normality (Damon says that marrying his bar lady "has made everything easier"). Maybe they want to be the only star. And maybe they just want a girl who knows how to mix them a decent drink when they came back from a tough day on set.