Sam Mendes representative announced on 15 March 2010 that "they separated earlier this year". The couple were divorced in 2011. Mendes married trumpeter Alison Balsom in January 2017, their daughter Phoebe Mendes was born in September 2017. Sam Mendes Samuel Alexander Mendes (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director best known for directing the drama film "American Beauty" (1999), which earned him the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film "Road to Perdition" (2002), and the "James Bond" films "Skyfall" (2012) and "Spectre" (2015). He also is known for dark re-inventions of the
James Bond greatest film hero. He was also placed at number 11 on a similar list by "Empire" and as the fifth greatest movie character of all time by "Premiere". The 23 James Bond films produced by Eon Productions, which have grossed $4,910 million in box office returns alone, have made the series one of the highest-grossing ever. It is estimated that since "Dr. No", a quarter of the world's population have seen at least one Bond film. The UK Film Distributors' Association have stated that the importance of the Bond series of films to the British film industry cannot be overstated,