Arquette-Cage Marriage Flatlines

ByABC News
November 20, 2000, 7:27 PM

November 19 -- The strange five-year marriage between actors Patricia Arquette and Nicolas Cage is over.

Cage filed divorce papers in February of this year, then rescinded them five weeks later. An attempted reunion now seems aborted, with Arquette, 32, filing her own divorce petition Friday.

Both parties cited those pesky "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for a split. Publicists for both performers have said their decision to end their marriage was mutual and amicable.

The two wed in April 1995, but have lived together only a few months in that five-year period. When Cage, 36, filed for divorce, he revealed that the pair had only cohabited for the first nine months of their marriage.

Both apparently planned for a divorce, splitting their property on paper way back in 1996. They sometimes appeared in public together, though both were hesitant to discuss their marriage in interviews.

The couple separated for a second time Nov. 1, Arquette's petition stated.

Cage and Arquette appeared together on-screen for the first time in the 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead.

Cage, the nephew of veteran filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, gained fame with a lead role in the cult favorite Raising Arizona and has gone on to garner parts in big-budget action flicks like Gone in 60 Seconds and Face/Off.

Cage won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as an alcoholic in the dark 1995 drama Leaving Las Vegas.

Arquette, whose most recent film is the Adam Sandler comedy Little Nicky, is the sister of actors David and Rosanna Arquette, and is the sister-in-law of Courteney Cox Arquette. Some consider her best work to be the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance, in which she appeared as a bubbly, troubled call girl-turned-newlywed.

Arquette and Cage have no children together, though each has a son from previous relationships.

Reuters contributed to this story.