EXCLUSIVE: Inside Late Playboy Terence Stamp’s VERY Private Marriage to Ex-Wife Who Was 35 Years His Junior — And His Bizarre Medical Fixation Which Ended Their Relationship
Terrance Stamp had a forgotten romance.
Aug. 20 2025, Published 4:42 p.m. ET
Terence Stamp’s Celebrity Death has cast new light on his intensely private marriage to a woman 35 years his junior – and RadarOnline.com can reveal it was a relationship that ended after rows over his obsession with alternative medicine.
The British actor, who died on August 17 at age 87, enjoyed a career that spanned six decades, from early acclaim in Billy Budd to global fame as the villainous General Zod in the Superman films.
The 'Superman' star died earlier this month.
Long Lost Love
But behind the screen persona, Stamp lived a quieter, unconventional domestic life, which included a six-year, and much-forgotten marriage to Elizabeth O’Rourke, a pharmacist he met in Australia in the 1990s.
Friends of the couple now say Stamp’s unconventional lifestyle and fixation with alternative therapies eventually drove them apart.
One source said: "Elizabeth wanted normality – a stable home and a family routine – but Terence was never going to be that man.
"He was too set on living by his own rules."
Another added: "His health practices and constant experiments with alternative cures were a big point of contention. For Elizabeth, a trained pharmacist, it felt like a clash of worlds."
The pair met in a Bondi pharmacy where O’Rourke was working after moving from Singapore to study pharmacology.
Stamp was 35 Years Her Senior
He kept the relationship largely private.
They married on New Year’s Eve in 2002, when Stamp was 64 and O’Rourke was 29.
Their relationship remained largely hidden from public view until their divorce six years later. Court papers cited Stamp’s "unreasonable behavior" as grounds for the split. Speaking in 2013, Stamp admitted he had not stayed in touch with O’Rourke after the separation.
He said: "One of the things I’ve learned in life is that it’s very easy to make a lover from a friend but it’s very hard to make a friend from a lover."
Stamp added: "We had an incredible amount of fun. She went back to Australia and that’s why I don’t see her, but if I do go there, I’m sure I will. There’s a lot that can happen with the passing of time."
The actor later explained that his reliance on alternative medicine had been a constant source of friction during the marriage.
In an interview with The Times, he said: "When I was married, my wife was very scornful of it. Being a pharmacist, she thought it was a load of b-------.
"But if we both got a cold, mine was over in a day, whereas hers lasted for weeks. That p----- her off."
Stamp also admitted he was ill-suited to a conventional home life.
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The actor was considered a bit of a playboy.
He said: "I haven’t had a permanent home for 15 years. I flit from friends’ houses to hotels. I don’t work for money so I learn to live only with what I need. A house and stability have never been for me."
Away from his marriage, Stamp was long associated with some of the great screen icons of the 1960s and known as a charmer – but a playboy.
He dated Julie Christie after spotting her on the cover of a magazine, and the couple later reunited on screen in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). Stamp was also in a high-profile relationship with Jean Shrimpton, the model who had previously dated photographer David Bailey.
He was briefly linked to Brigitte Bardot during his years in Paris, but it was his relationships with Christie and Shrimpton that came to define his off-screen image as one of cinema’s most eligible leading men.
He was 87 when he died.
