She was beautiful, and had a 5 year old daughter with her husband, the actor Danny Huston. She committed suicide this month before their divorce was even final, but the divorce did not “cause” her suicide. What caused it was bipolar disorder.

Katie Jane Evans, 35, was a born and bred English beauty, and her husband, 46, was the illegitimate son of the director John Huston and the English actress Zoe Sallis. They married in 2002, and moved to a house in the Hollywood Hills, in California, while Huston appeared in movies like How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. They visited Huston’s half sister, the actress Anjelica Huston. She was friends with the aristocratic Emma Parker Bowles, who also lived in LA.

Life seemed glamorous and exciting. Then things turned bitter.

The divorce proceedings, which she filed in California last year, were fraught with charges and countercharges. He used drugs. She tried to commit suicide with pain killers and alcohol, and had gone into rehab. He wasn’t capable of caring for their child. She wasn’t capable of caring for their child. She told Huston’s talent agent that she was bipolar, and had hidden that from her husband for their entire marriage.

Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness also called manic depression; people with a severe form live chaotic lives on the edge, take risks, have periods of exhilaration and wild creativity, followed by deep depressions. Some 20 percent of the most seriously afflicted commit suicide.

Despite the acrimony, the terms of the divorce were settled amicably: Huston gave her their Hollywood Hills house and $17,500 a month, half his income, and they agreed on shared custody of their daughter, Stella.

But, her friends said, she went into a deep depression over the end of her marriage.

In Florida, there is no such thing as “joint custody”; instead it is called “shared parental responsibility.” The person given custody is technically the “primary residential custodian” and the other parent is the “secondary residential custodian.”

Why? Because courts around the world are trying to remove inflammatory words from family law, in hopes that will make divorce less fractious. In 2005, France eliminated any gender bias in the language in its divorce laws. It treats mothers and fathers as exact equals, except in one area: a wife may take back her maiden name.

As long ago as 1991, the British courts changed the language for custody, in an attempt to remove the sense of ownership that went along with the word “custody.” Because of that, 17 years ago, “we heaved a collective sigh of relief,” said Jonathan Smith, a family lawyer in Great Britain.

The problem, he said, was that the courts were using the new terms “parental responsibility,” “residence,” and (for the parent who does not live with the child) “contact” time.

But, he said, regular people, and the press, continued to talk about "custody" and "access" to the child.

And yet, people keep trying. In 2001, the Minnesota legislature adopted new language for custody and visitation, ahem, “in an attempt to lessen the animosity in custody battles.” One parent is the “primary caregiver,” but both parents are apportioned “parenting time.”

Even in New York, where we and everyone else have endlessly referred to “custody” in celebrity cases, like the Christie Brinkley-Peter Cook divorce, the actual terms are “residential custody” to one parent, making the other parent the “non-residential parent.”

Without saying one word about why his wife, Jennifer Butler, might have asked for a divorce, the actor Bill Murray said that the divorce had left him “devastated.” He was speaking about it now because he has a movie to promote, City of Ember, opening on Friday. So as with many Hollywood stars with a “hook,” he suddenly finds the need to unburden himself.

His wife filed for divorce in May, after 10 years of marriage and four sons, citing “spousal abuse” and her husband’s problems with drugs, alcohol, and sex addiction. That can’t be any fun for their sons, who are age 7 to 15. The divorce was rushed through and the information was private. She kept the children; he is allowed visitation rights and has to pay child support.

But now Murray is telling AP that his divorce is “the worst thing that ever happened to me in my entire life."

After it happened, he said, he was “dead” and “broken.”

"When you're really in love with someone and this happens — I never had anything like this happen. It's like your faith in people is destroyed because the person you trusted the most you can no longer trust at all. ... The person you know isn't there anymore."

OK, that’s a lot of self pity. And get this. The people on the movie are now claiming that the divorce not only devastated him, it made him better.

"If I could get through this in a powerful way, I feel that I have even more potential to do something," he told AP.

"I think I'd be working on a higher level. It'd be great to achieve, to do the art that I thought I was always capable of -- something that really, really affects people and grabs them and makes them feel and become alive."

Of course it’s a gimmick, but it got our attention. If you’re divorced, and headed for marriage No. 2, you probably don’t want to go through the whole formal wedding deal a second time, nor do you want to pay for it.

Now comes “Elope for Obama.”

For all weddings in October, the Brooks Hill Historic Church in Portland, Oregon, will donate the entire rental fee to the Obama presidential campaign. In fact, you’re told to make a check out to Obama for Change.

You can have up to 50 guests. The nondenominational church is on a hillside 20 minutes from downtown Portland. You can choose from any wedding on their website, with rentals from $395 for an intimate two-hour wedding to $695 for a four-hour wedding. Use of the baby grand is included. Local ministers, usually $200 to $300, will pronounce the vows (religious or secular), also at no charge, in support of Barack Obama. Or you can bring your own minister. Everything, of course is subject to availability. And you need to be in Oregon four business days in advance to get your license. Other than that, party on!

What can we say... Portland is that liberal a place. Cindy Lou Banks, the owner of the church, feels that Obama, if elected, would bring a new beginning to the country, and said, “What better way is there for couples to support his election than eloping in October and forging their own new beginnings?"

How does Banks make money from this? Volume!

Oh, and if you reserve the chapel ($150 deposit) and don’t show up for the wedding, they keep your deposit.

We will now give equal time to any lawyer offering a free divorce in honor of John McCain.

A recent poll of church-going Catholics in England and Wales found that the majority believed a couple should separate or divorce if they are not happy or compatible.

Nonetheless, last Sunday the Pope, speaking in in Lourdes, emphasized his disapproval of “irregular unions,” which is to say Catholics who divorce and remarry without getting a church annulment.

"Initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted," he told the French bishops. The Catholic church holds that marriage is irrevocable and indissoluble because, the Pope said; that’s the way it was instituted by Christ.

Catholics who remarry after divorcing their spouses will not be allowed to receive communion unless the second marriages are unconsummated.

Yes, that’s right. The Catholic church is not against remarriage. The church that reveres the Holy Virgin Mary is against sex.

As Benedict put it last year when he was explaining the church’s views, Catholics cannot receive communion if they remarry because then they would be committing adultery.

The Church, he said, "encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship ... as friends, as brother and sister."

Now that kind of defeats the whole idea of the honeymoon, doesn’t it?

We hope these kinds of rulings don’t make the difficulty of divorce even harder for some to take. For simplified information on annulment in the Catholic Church, go here.