Celebrity Roommates

It’s been awhile since William Shatner begged James Spader to be his roommate on Boston Legal, and even longer since Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross were roomies on Friends, not to mention the guys from Animal House. Roommates can support us just as strongly as those two buttons on Mickey Mouse’s pants. Here are some real-life celebrity roommates that might surprise you.

Kiefer Sutherland revealed recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he had roomed with Robert Downey, Jr. for three years when he came to Hollywood. Jack Bauer and Iron Man: a smokin’ pair, if ever there was one.

Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters once shared space, according to their bios. One of Marilyn’s bios said it was at the now-defunct Hollywood Studio Club (1916-1975), a chaperoned dorm for single girls in the movie business, but Shelley’s bio said it was an apartment. Either way, they were roomies.

Tommy Lee Jones’s roommate at Harvard was none other than former veep Al Gore, and they’re still good friends. (The pair also hung out with John Lithgow, another Harvard man, though not their roommate, says Moviefone’s Inside Movies.)

Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams seem an unlikely duo, but they lived together in the ’70s while both were studying at Juilliard. After a horse riding fall that left him paralyzed, the late Reeve wrote in his autobio, Still Me, that Williams visited him and pretended to be a Russian proctologist. It was, he wrote, the first time he had laughed since the accident. It has been said that Williams contributed greatly to Reeves’s huge medical bills.

Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames roomed together while they were drama students. I heard that, when Rhames complained about his name being too long for any movie marquee that might be in his future, it was Tucci who suggested he simply remove the IR from Irving.

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson shared digs as undergrads at UTA. They’ve collaborated on Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, and Wilson starred in Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited. They’re still great friends.

Dustin Hoffman has roomed with more than one equally famous person, from Gene Hackman to Robert Duvall. On the building rooftop of their one-bedroom flat (Dustin slept on the kitchen floor), Hoffman played bongos to Hackman’s conga drum. Duvall said he and Hoffman only went to acting class to meet girls. At one time, all three lived together. I can’t really count Bill Murray, who played Hoffman’s roomie in Tootsie.

And, in case you haven’t heard yet, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins used to be roomies, but not anymore.