By most accounts, Ryan's quest for self-definition began long before last summer's controversy. As early as 1998, Ryan had spoken openly of "the danger" posed by the film careers that caused her and Quaid to lead largely separate lives." That can be really disastrous," she said, "going off and having fun everywhere else but not together." By the time she arrived in Ecuador to film Proof last spring, the two were in serious trouble. And Crowe proved just the tonic for her malaise: a bad-boy ladies' man known for his bar brawls but also a gentle romantic who writes songs and poetry and spent hours just talking to Ryan -- and listening. As Ryan later said: "To be heard -- and really seen -- is the ultimate turn-on."

Sufficiently ignited, Ryan did little to hide her feelings for Crowe once she and Quaid formally announced their split. "They seemed crazy about each other," says her friend. "They had great talks, they e-mailed each other a lot. He called her all the time." In early September the two were holding hands and kissing as they shopped in Santa Monica. A week later they were in Australia, taking in a rodeo in Nana Glen, a bushland hamlet where Crowe owns a 560-acre farm, and touring the country in his black BMW. The pair even conducted a make-believe house hunt through Sydney. "It was sweet," says Ryan's friend. "He'd point and say, 'How about that one?' "

For her part Ryan was "extremely infatuated" with Crowe, says a pal -- and with reason. "He's a tough thing to resist," says her friend Carrie Fisher, adding with a laugh, "I was just glad I had a friend that got him. If I can't have him, I want to hear what he's like -- at some point, when she's willing to talk." When, on Dec. 7, Ryan and Crowe strolled hand in hand through the tony furniture shops in L.A.'s Pacific Design Center, they "seemed happy," says someone who saw them buying a pricey Oriental rug at J.H. Minassian & Co. "Definitely a couple." They could not have been pleased, of course, when in subsequent days Proof of Life proved less than lively at the box office -- and director Taylor Hackford declared their high-profile romance "disastrous" for the movie's performance. The comment incensed Crowe, who later grumbled at the film's London premiere, "He's a f------ idiot."