Enduring love stories are typically the stuff of legend in Hollywood.
Ironic really, that in a fast moving industry founded on the profitability of romance you'd be hard pressed to find the long-term relationships and rock-solid marriages it so successfully conveys on TV and cinema screens.
But it was right there, staring us all in the face in real time at the 96th annual as veteran star Amy Madigan claimed her very first Oscar, at the ripe old age of 75.
The celebrated actress rightfully triumphed in the category for Female Actor in a Supporting Role courtesy of her stellar performance as the villainous Aunt Gladys in last year's supernatural thriller, Weapons.
And it was her direct address to Ed Harris - her devoted husband of 43-years - that confirmed true love really does exist in Tinsel Town as she collected the coveted statuette from Zoe Saldaña on Sunday evening.
'The most important is my beloved Ed, who’s been with me forever, and that’s a long ass time,' she told the star-studded audience at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.
Amy Madigan was supported by devoted husband Ed Harris as she won her first Oscar at the 96th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday evening
Madigan and Harris during the Drama Desk Awards at Plaza Hotel in New York City, 1986, three years after they exchanged vows
Madrigal first encountered Harris while he performed in the Sam Shepard play, Cowboy Mouth (pictured together in 1985)
'None of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side.'
Struggling to contain his emotions, Harris, himself a three-time Academy Award nominee, responded by placing a hand over his heart as he watched alongside their daughter, Lily.
She added: 'We´re kind of advised, ´Don´t say all these names, as nobody knows who the hell these people are.
'But you´re not rattling them off. They mean something to you; that you couldn´t be here without them.'
The last time Madrigal was nominated for an Oscar was for her role in 1985 family drama Twice in a Lifetime, setting a record for the longest gap between nominations for an actress.
And Harris was by her side on that occasion too, five years after she first encountered the actor while he performed in the Sam Shepard play, Cowboy Mouth.
'It was like something you see in a movie or hear in a song,' she told the Los Angeles Times of that first meeting. 'I just thought, "Well, there he is." It was obvious to me that I'd see him again.'
'A year later, we did a play together called Prairie Avenue by Edward Allan Baker at that little theater on Melrose Place.'
The rest, as they say, is history, with Madrigal and Harris exchanging vows in 1983 while working together on the Robert Benton directed drama, Places in the Heart.
But the actress has always maintained their prior relationship was far from the whirlwind romance many people assumed it to be.
'It's a nice Hollywood story,' she said. 'But it's not true.'
The couple exchanged vows in 1983 while working together on the Robert Benton directed drama, Places in the Heart (pictured L-R: co-stars Ed Harris, Lindsay Crouse, Amy Madigan, Terry O'Quinn)
They welcomed daughter Lily Dolores, their only child, in 1993. Now 32, she has followed her parents into the acting industry (pictured together in 2008)
Madigan has always maintained their prior relationship was far from the whirlwind romance many people assumed it to be (pictured together at the 40th annual Tony Awards in 1986)
Madigan has worked with her husband on 11 films to date, with the couple establishing themselves as staunch advocates of American independent cinema through their work outside the Hollywood mainstream (pictured together in 1988)
(L-R) Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, daughter Lily Harris and Lily's husband Sean on the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party in Hollywood on Sunday evening
'We just love each other and we work really hard at that and in our work,' she explained, admitting her husband loved her in Weapons and 'saw all the parts of myself melded into Aunt Gladys.'
'I have a very supportive family,' she added. 'My daughter also, so I'm very lucky.'
Supportive indeed. Madigan has worked with her husband on 11 films to date, with the couple establishing themselves as staunch advocates of American independent cinema through their work outside the Hollywood mainstream.
And she was there to champion Harris in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when his career hit a commercial peak with starring roles in Apollo 13, The Truman Show, and The Hours, in which he played a gay artist, stricken with full blown AIDS.
'The acting thing is so intimate and personal. If we're not working together... you can't really talk about your day very well,' she once told the Chicago Tribune.
'When you're working together, though, there's so much that is shared, so much unspoken thought and emotion that goes into the work, that it really draws you closer.'
Her own career has been equally consistent, but Madigan believes the casting process in Hollywood is still affected by systemic sexism.
Fortunately, Harris remains her biggest supporter.
'Ed knows the business as well as I do,' she recently told The Guardian. 'So he’s good on all that. We met working together. We’ve done many films together.
'So we’re used to having each other’s back.'
