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 in film pursue. As part of the settlement, MGM paid $10 million for the rights to "Casino Royale", which had come into Sony's possession. Daniel Craig played Bond in a short film, "Happy and Glorious", produced by Lisa Osborne for the BBC and directed by Danny Boyle as part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. In the film Bond is summoned to Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II—played by herself—and escorts her by helicopter to the Olympic Stadium. Bond and Her Majesty jump from the helicopter into the stadium with Union Flag parachutes. For the parachute jump,