April 27, 2009 | 8:27 pm

Slumdog stars in love—and in Israel

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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Movie sets have always been ripe breeding grounds for romantic relationships. Part of Hollywood’s grand allure is that its history is studded with fantastic romances—Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—though most give way to failed relationships. Still, the intensity and chemistry that swirls on a set, when you work and eat and live and sleep so intimately with each other, is for many impossible to resist. Thus is the new fate of “Slumdog Millionaire” stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto who have finally succumbed to their senses. The couple has been seen gallivanting around Israel while Pinto films a movie there.

It’s amazing when you realize that months ago, these two talents were completely unknown—with Bollywood, the brightest star in their future. Now, with an Oscar-winning movie behind them, the full rush of the Hollywood machine is driving them forth, out into the world, bestowing them with luxuries they could have only henceforth imagined, and all they have to cling to is each other. It’s as if they are the only vestiges left from a life that has irreversibly changed. And as we’ve seen before, whether its young love or the toxins of hard reality, their lovely innocence will inevitably alter as their fame rises. Or maybe it doesn’t, and that breaks them. It’s funny how Hollywood gave us the dream in which our first love could be our last, but the reality driving the magic of the movies is far less generous.

From People:

After much speculation about the nature of the relationship involving Slumdog Millionaire stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, Patel’s mother Anita has confirmed to a British newspaper that the pair are very much a couple.

“First it was the film and now everything else seems to have slotted into place,” Mrs. Patel is quoted as saying in Monday’s Daily Mirror.

“Life can’t get any better for him. Freida is really beautiful, and I am really happy for them.”

Her comments come just days after Patel, 19, jetted to Israel to spend a whirlwind date with the Mumbai beauty, 24. “Yes, we knew he was flying to Israel to see her,” said Patel’s mother.

The pair rendezvoused in Tel Aviv as Pinto took time off from filming her latest movie in Jerusalem. The couple spent a few hours together in a hotel before emerging for a stroll around the harbor and an early champagne dinner at a seaside restaurant.