Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 28, is far from just a double-barrelled parvenu. Her father, Charles, is a chartered surveyor and her stylish mother, Fiona, worked as a fitness instructor while bringing up her three children on a sprawling Devon farm.
Little is known about Fiona’s side of the family, but Rosie’s father is descended from a line of baronets with royal connections. His great-grandfather, Sir Herbert Huntington-Whiteley, a Conservative MP, was made a baronet in 1918.
Sir Herbert had two sons — Maurice, his heir, and Eric, Rosie’s great-grandfather. Maurice ascended the social ladder when he married Margaret Baldwin, the daughter of prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and their son, John, wed Queen Victoria’s great-great granddaughter.
Jason’s rather different family history can be told in fewer words. The 48-year-old is the son of Barry Statham, a market stall trader and lounge singer, and his wife Eileen, a dancer.
Small wonder that Rosie’s friends jokingly refer to Jason as her ‘bit of rough’. Born in the working-class ex-mining community of Shirebrook, Derbyshire, Jason had a peripatetic childhood flitting between there, Norfolk and South London.
The one constant was a need to duck and dive for money. As a child, Jason would switch between playing drums in working men’s clubs with the family band and supporting his dad in ‘mock auctions’, which consisted of persuading the public to pay inflated prices for end-of-the-line goods.
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 28, is far from just a double-barrelled parvenu. Jason is a market trader’s son
A glance at Jason’s lookalike father — every bit as granite-jawed as his action-hero son — reveals how the family was able to make a living in these hostile environments.
As Jason memorably put it to chat show host Jay Leno: ‘They weren’t exactly playing croquet and quaffing champagne at weekends. It’s pretty tough down there.’
By contrast, Rosie’s upbringing in rural Devon was as sheltered as they come. They may not have been swimming in money, but the Huntington-Whiteleys very much come from the sector of society which does not buy furniture — they inherit it.
Weekends were spent helping out on the family farm near Tavistock, and Rosie’s memories are of horses, skiing holidays and big family gatherings around a roaring fire.
Neither Jason or Rosie have had stellar academic careers
As befits the progeny of aristocrats, Rosie’s younger siblings, Florence, 22, and Toby, 25, have taken their time over choosing careers.
Toby, who has a killer combination of his sister’s pouting features and his future brother-in-law’s chiselled abdominal muscles, is a rising male model who also works as an elite fitness trainer for Nike.
The youngest Huntington-Whiteley is a skiing fanatic who styles herself ‘Disco Flo’ and runs a website, Snowhoes, dedicated to ‘all things rad in women’s action sports’ (to use her own youthful phrasing).
Jason’s older brother, Lee, has had no such luxury. However, he has carved out a living playing the guitar — a skill he learned at an early age while performing in and around Norfolk with his parents’ band.
When not visiting Jason and Rosie in LA, he is based in Great Yarmouth, where he operates as a guitar-for-hire at weddings and private functions.
He may not have Jason’s millions, but in stark contrast to his balding little brother, he does, at least, boast a full head of hair.
Neither of the couple can lay claim to a stellar academic career.
Rosie’s attempts at the 11-plus exam were unsuccessful and she ended up attending the local comprehensive, Tavistock College. She was, however, a highly popular student and — contrary to the usual model’s ‘ugly duckling’ claims — universally admired by male classmates.
Bullied by some for her double-barrelled name, she also had to endure endless teasing over the fact that, at the time, she had big lips and a flat chest.
It can’t have been all bad, however, as prescient fellow pupils also voted her ‘most likely to become a supermodel’.
Jason, by contrast, did excel in some areas of education — he earned a place at Great Yarmouth Grammar School, where he shone on the football pitch and in the swimming pool.
Any aspirations to university were jettisoned when he moved to South-East London in his late teens to seek fame and fortune, making ends meet by working on street stalls and as a struggling fitness model.
It was here on the mean streets of the capital that he developed the hard-man accent that is his trademark in action films.
For Rosie and Jason, the quest for fame was a very different experience. Jason spent years honing his physique and exploring new career paths.
He trained as a member of the British diving team in the late Eighites (he competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games and finished 12th in platform diving in the 1992 World Championships), before moving into fitness modelling.
Early aspirations to be a stuntman soon drifted towards acting, with Jason appearing in a few music videos before being snapped up by Guy Ritchie to play the lead role in hit gangster flick Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.
Even at school, Rosie had her pick of the boys while Jason was romantically linked to Kelly Brook
