Has Sir Ben found a new love?

Sir Ben with Daniela to see Sir Ben with wife No3 Alexandra

11 April 2012

So humiliating was the break-up of his third marriage that Sir Ben Kingsley thought he might never trust another woman again.

But a year after he discovered pictures on the Internet of 30-year-old German aristocrat Alexandra Christmann embracing another man, he has evidently moved on - to another woman almost half his age.

Only 12 weeks after the divorce came through, 62-year- old Sir Ben stepped on to the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of the film Nanny McPhee with 32-year-old bit-part actress Daniela Barbosa.

The next day, he was to be found shading Miss Barbosa - who has taken on the rather more fragrant stage name of Daniela Lavender - from the sun under a black umbrella as they walked to lunch on Sunset Boulevard.

The pair held hands as they strolled along before choosing a no-frills cheeseburger and Coke meal in a 50s-style diner where they giggled like lovestruck teenagers.

To date, Miss Barbosa - who is an inch taller than the diminutive actor - has had a far less distinguished career.

While Sir Ben boasts an Oscar for Gandhi, and has been nominated for three others, the highlight of Miss Barbosa's career has been in a little-known 2003.

British film called Emotional Backgammon, which had a budget of only £6,000, and which one reviewer called 'an awful misfire'.

She also appeared as a maid in Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G Indahouse and was in an episode of Casualty.

Sir Ben was first married to actress Angela Morant, with whom he had two children before they divorced in 1972. He then married theatre director Alison Sutcliffe but left her in 1993 for actress Kate Townsend, 35, with whom he lived until 2002.

When reports surfaced in the summer of 2004 that his third wife Alexandra was seeing an old flame, property developer David Borg, Sir Ben challenged his wife. She dismissed the rumours and said it was just friendship.

Six months later, faced with a picture on the Internet of his wife smiling and embracing 41-yearold Sammy Brauner in a Berlin club, he realised the truth. The actor, who was on location in New York, made a desperate call to Alexandra in Berlin. She admitted she had been dating Brauner, the son of a film producer.

Sir Ben spoke candidly of the break-up saying: 'It came at a very, very vulnerable time for me and I was deeply, deeply shocked because until then I had no idea.

'It's very difficult for a man to learn on the Internet that his wife has a boyfriend - I can't put it any other way. I clicked on, went into shock and then clicked off. Tragically, I had to file for divorce.'

Friends of statuesque blonde Alexandra later revealed how she had tired of the life at his imposing Victorian mansion in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire.

Her friends also spoke of how Sir Ben had been unbearably pompous and controlling.

One said: 'I was introduced to him at a party and said, very respectfully, "Hello Mr Kingsley." He looked at me in disgust and said, "You should call me Sir Ben" and cut me dead.

'He turned away and ended the conversation there and then. I couldn't believe his attitude.'

Indeed, that attitude appeared to be echoed in reports from the set of his latest film Oliver Twist, where he was said to have acquired rather grand notions about himself.

A source on the set of Roman Polanski's movie said: 'He insisted we use his title, even while in costume as Fagin.'

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