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 of the funding for the Bond films, fell into financial difficulties following the box office failure of "Heaven's Gate" (1980), bringing uncertainty to the future of the funding. The situation was resolved in May 1981, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired United Artists. Following "For Your Eyes Only", Roger Moore had expressed a desire to stop playing James Bond. His original contract had been for three films, a requirement fulfilled with "The Spy Who Loved Me". Subsequent films had been negotiated on a film-by-film basis. The producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next actor to play Bond, which would be for