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
Motifs in the James Bond film series for the film: "you put in three girls ... Girl number one is pro-Bond. She stays around roughly through the first reel of the picture. Then she is bumped off by the enemy, preferably in Bond's arms." The next girl is anti-Bond and normally captures him, but Bond will save himself by using his charm and sexual potency: she is normally killed midway through the film. Girl number three will survive and end the film in Bond's embrace. Academic Kimberly A. Neuendorf notes that James Bond promotes stereotypical, sex-typed male attitudes, especially when interacting with women and in doing so