Los Angeles Power Couples: The Essential List

Los Angeles loves its stars -- and if they come in pairs, all the better. But this list doesn't focus on couples like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie; instead, we're featuring the city's top movers and shakers when it comes to politics, sports, culture, media, and education. Los Angeles wouldn't be what it is today without them, and it certainly won't be all that it could without their future contributions (we're eagerly anticipating The Broad's construction downtown).

Like HuffPost New York's Power Couples List, "each participant in said couple must be impressive in their own right -- creative, accomplished, powerful, important." Stay tuned for the Next Generation LA Power Couples, one week from today.

The Essential Los Angeles Power Couples. Browse and rank your favorites, or add your own suggestions in the comments below.

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Eli & Edye Broad

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HIM: The billionaire philanthropist and Los Angeles revitalizer. Born in Detroit, Broad co-founded KB Home with Donald Kaufman and acquired the Sun Life Insurance Company in 1971. He reworked Sun Life into the savings company, SunAmerica which he sold for $18 billion in 1999. He was ranked the 173rd wealthiest person in the world, by Forbes. HER: Married Eli in 1954, when she was eighteen. Edye co-founded The Broad Foundations with her husband. Together they have given numerous donations including $100 million to Harvard's biomedical research, $60 million to LACMA, and $23 million to Broad at UCLA. Currently in the works is The Broad Museum. Rumored to be costing over $1 billion, it will house the Broads art collection that Edye has created over the years. They have lived in Los Angeles since 1963. Photo: Getty

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HIM: The billionaire philanthropist and Los Angeles revitalizer. Born in Detroit, Broad co-founded KB Home with Donald Kaufman and acquired the Sun Life Insurance Company in 1971. He reworked Sun Life into the savings company, SunAmerica which he sold for $18 billion in 1999. He was ranked the 173rd wealthiest person in the world, by Forbes.

HER: Married Eli in 1954, when she was eighteen. Edye co-founded The Broad Foundations with her husband. Together they have given numerous donations including $100 million to Harvard's biomedical research, $60 million to LACMA, and $23 million to Broad at UCLA. Currently in the works is The Broad Museum. Rumored to be costing over $1 billion, it will house the Broads art collection that Edye has created over the years.

They have lived in Los Angeles since 1963.

Photo: Getty

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Comments

[revko]

04:22 PM on 05/08/2011

"each participant in said couple must be impressive in their own right -- creative, accomplished, powerful, important"

and not black?

[LMPE]

02:37 PM on 05/08/2011

Half of them I'd never even heard of.

[justinuiuc]

10:13 PM on 05/07/2011

Umm, why are there no gay couples? What a glaring, embarrassing oversight. Get with the times, folks.

[jimmygeewhiz]

08:12 PM on 05/07/2011

Wow!

[srobertstad]

05:12 PM on 05/07/2011

Love the "power couple" requirements: "each participant in said couple must be impressive in their own right -- creative, accomplished, powerful, important." If you are a power couple yourself, one without kids, you'll love DINKlife.com.

[Scott Zwartz]

05:09 PM on 05/07/2011

# 1 Eli Broad -- philanthropist or smuckopist?

It is interesting that Eli Broad is #1 -- what's his claim to fame? Getting $52 Million of taxpayer dollars for his own parking garage next to his art museum, while the kids in Hollywood don't get a park. That's the trade off. LA has millions to give to Eli so they cannot afford a park for kids. Per CRA/LA records, the 1.1 acre park land cost only $8.5 M.

I guess the Garfield Park for Mexican, Thai and Armenian kids in Hollywood didn't buy Eli enough publicity --- like a donation to $100 M Harvard. $100 M sounds like a lot. It is only .0055 of $18 Billion.

For a family who lies in the Garfield Park area and who makes $25,000 per year, .0055 would be $138.88.

So what's the benefit of the $52 M parking garage to Eli? The equivalent of $69.00 dollars! But, Eli needs that money more than kids need a park.

Philanthropist or smuckopist? You decide.

[robodawa]

05:00 PM on 05/07/2011

Hmmm. No one here from TRW, Hughes or the Skunkworks. What about JPL? Do higher math and nonlinear algorithms scare away the average Huff Po reader?
This list is about the surface of Los Angeles.

[Theda]

01:37 AM on 05/07/2011

Norman Lear picked a young second wife.
She looks like his daughter.

[moosetacos]

12:19 AM on 05/07/2011

I love how all the "power women" are all somehow contributing to Huffington Post in some way. No bias on this list.

[Richcrafter]

10:06 PM on 05/06/2011

Why? Snore.

[thebigbike]

05:13 PM on 05/06/2011

Essential??? if you say so. I guess...... but for whom?