As Billie Piper splits with Laurence, we take a look at the tangled love-lives of the Fox family
AS one of the nation’s most celebrated acting dynasties, the Fox family are no strangers to drama.
But nowadays the clan, which includes veteran actor Edward and Silent Witness star Emilia, are as well known for the plot twists in their off-screen lives.
Laurence, 41 — DI James Hathaway in ITV cop drama Lewis — is the latest Fox to fail in marriage.
He announced his split from actress wife Billie Piper, 37, in 2016.
The pair have been married for eight years, with two young children, Eugene and Winston.
Meanwhile, his cousin Emilia, 45, has split from her long-term partner, the chef Marco Pierre White, 58 who is still married to Mati Conejero, 51, despite an acrimonious split.
Her suave father Edward this week sparked an outcry by saying it was natural for men to cheat on their wives.
Here we take a closer look at the tangled romantic affairs of the famous Foxes.
Robin Fox
THE dynasty began through theatre agent Robin Fox and his actress wife Angela, parents to sons Edward, James and Robert.
Robin, who died in 1971, started the family’s tradition of troubled marriages.
He told his wife, who was pregnant at the time with Edward: “You know I have no intention of being faithful to you. I shall sleep with whoever I like.”
He is reported to have had affairs with Princess Marina, the late Duchess of Kent, and it was rumoured he had fathered a child with theatrical agent Ros Chatto, his longstanding mistress.
Her son Daniel Chatto is married to Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, daughter of Princess Margaret, the Queen’s late sister, and Lord Snowdon.
Edward Fox
BEST known for starring in tense 1973 thriller The Day Of The Jackal, Edward, 78, was married to Dr Strangelove actress Tracy Reed from 1958 to 1961.
The pair have a daughter together, Lucy.
Back in the Seventies, Edward fell for fellow screen performer Joanna David while he was still living with another actress, Eileen Atkins.
Edward has also admitted to having other lovers during his longstanding relationship with Joanna, 69.
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And this week he caused a storm by suggesting that it was natural for men to cheat.
He said: “Men need to play the field and spread their seed, whereas women don’t have that same biological urge.
“It’s not natural. Because of that essential difference, women should be more understanding if their partner cheats.”
He finally married Joanna in 2004 and they are parents to Emilia and Freddie.
A career spanning decades includes roles in A Bridge Too Far and Gandhi.
Emilia Fox
A STABLE love life has so far eluded the Silent Witness actress, 45.
Her father Edward revealed this month that she had split from her partner, the three-times married chef Marco Pierre White. They had a four-year, on-off relationship during which Marco remained married to his estranged third wife Mati, who is the mother of his three children.
After a brief engagement to comedian Vic Reeves in 2000 Emilia was married for three years to Mad Men star Jared Harris, 59, the son of hellraising actor Richard Harris.
She also dated actor and campaigner Jeremy Gilley, having daughter Rose together, but they split in 2011.
Freddie Fox
FREDDIE dated the actress Tamzin Merchant his co-star in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, for two years.
He starred in 2014 film The Riot Club, loosely based on Oxford’s notorious Bullingdon Club, which counted David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson among its members.
Freddie was romantically linked to Prince Harry’s ex Cressida Bonas, 27, but insisted they were just friends.
Last year he was quizzed about his sexuality and said: “Most of my life to date has been as a straight man but who knows what will happen next?”
Robert Fox
THE theatre and film producer, 67, has been married three times, first to casting director Celestia Sporborg, with whom he had three children.
Next he married actress Natasha Richardson, ten years his junior. The marriage lasted just two years.
In 1996 he married Vogue editor-at-large Fiona Golfar, having two more children with her.
Robert was reportedly furious when Billie Piper banned kids from her wedding to Laurence in 2007 as it meant his children Joe and Molly, then aged 11 and nine, would not be welcome at the ceremony.
His older daughter Chloe is a writer and his son Sam an agent.
Fox cubs
ACTRESS LYDIA FOX, 39, appeared in The IT Crowd and married co-star Richard Ayoade in 2007.
She appeared alongside sister-in-law Billie Piper in Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.
Producer ROBIN FOX, 46, likes to keep it in the family. His biggest movie to date was The Double, directed by brother-in-law Ayoade.
The youngest of James’ children, JACK FOX, 34, is best known for playing posh student Ralph in Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat.
Last year he appeared alongside his father in West End play Dear Lupin and is in the forthcoming film Kids In Love, with model Cara Delevingne.
James Fox
THE Bafta winner, 80, quit acting for ten years in the Seventies to become an evangelical Christian after starring alongside Mick Jagger in the violent and very raunchy film Performance.
But his conduct was not always so pure. The American actress Anjelica Huston, now 64, told how he seduced her when she was 17 and he was 28.
James dated actress Sarah Miles in the Sixties before marrying Mary Piper in 1973. They have five children together – Laurence, Lydia and Jack, who are all actors, plus Robin and Thomas.
Laurence Fox
REBELLED against his silver-spoon upbringing and was expelled from £12,000-a-term Harrow public school.
But he did graduate from top drama school Rada.
The Lewis star dated actress Martha Swann for seven years and was living with her when he fell for Doctor Who star and former pop star Billie Piper, claiming it was “love at first sight”.
When the pair married the next year, Billie’s DJ ex-husband Chris Evans was a guest at the wedding and even helped to organise the nuptials.
They moved to an idyllic home in West Sussex to raise children Winston, seven, and Eugene, three. But Billie confessed to “going all Sylvia Plath” in the countryside – referring to the poet and wife of former poet laureate Ted Hughes, who suffered depression and eventually killed herself.
Laurence quit ITV’s Lewis last year to focus on music.
Lyrics on debut album Holding Patterns seemed to hint at marriage woes.
In single Headlong, he sings: “Our wars are fuelled by a lifestyle, baby/It’s time to change it, to turn/And walk away.”