Still, Culkin is not the only star to incur a failed marriage at an age when many kids are still learning to manage their first credit card. But teen marriages like his are at the greatest risk, according to Rutgers University sociology professor David Popenoe, whose research shows that those who marry very young are up to three times more likely to split than those who wait even a few years longer. "Of course, in Hollywood," adds Popenoe, "you can count on one hand the number of marriages that have lasted more than 25 years."

Maybe that's because showbiz marriages also face unusual risk factors: Nomadic work locations, steamy love scenes with hard-bodied costars, intrusive fans, clashing egos, free-floating insecurity and competing careers. If established actors like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (who wed when he was 28 and she 23), Bruce Willis and Demi Moore (he was 32, she 25) and Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid (28 for her, 36 for him) can't make it, how does that bode for budding stars who are still adjusting to the Tilt-a-Whirl of fame? "No matter how good it is, a relationship takes a lot of work," says California-based couples counselor Deborah McMahon. "Hollywood exposes couples to other options: They're traveling to locations, working with attractive, charismatic people. Being on-set is very intense."

No one knows that better than those who've been through the celebrity spin cycle a few dozen times. Pop singer and actor Pat Boone, 67, eloped at 19 with his high school sweetheart, Shirley Lee Foley, now 67. "All the pressures began to mount," says Boone. "I was shooting movies on location. I had the girls swooning. One year I was gone for half the time. That's no good for the marriage. I succumbed to temptations. I had affairs. "How did they manage to salvage their union? "I made a recommitment to our vows," Boone says, adding that their Christian faith played an important part: "I do not know how any couple in show business stays together without the cement of mutual faith."

Religious or not, these days most young celebs taking the plunge are at least aware of the challenges that lie ahead. The fact that her mother, Goldie Hawn, never married her boyfriend of 18 years, Kurt Russell, didn't stop Hudson from getting hitched to Black Crowes singer Robinson in December 2000. Having grown up in a showbiz family -- and witnessed a stable relationship -- Hudson's decision to wed was a reflection of a "very worldly" outlook, says her father, Bill Hudson, a musician who divorced Hawn in 1980. "Kate's been around show business her whole life," he says. "She is very mature." Notes Bill's brother Mark, an L.A. record producer: "Everyone thought she was young to be getting married, but I asked her, 'Do you really love him?' She said, 'Yes, I do.' I asked, 'Does he really love you?' And she said, 'Oh, Uncle Mark, it's so special.' You could tell it was real and that she knows what that is."