Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes split

OSCAR-WINNING actress Kate Winslet and her director husband Sam Mendes have separated after nearly seven years of marriage, their lawyers announced.

The split, which happened earlier this year, has left the pair “saddened” but was said to be “entirely amicable”, the spokesman said.

Kate Winslet, 34, and Sam Mendes, 10 years her senior, married in 2003 and were one of the film world’s best-known couples. It was the Berkshire-born actress’s second marriage.

Kate, who won the Best Actress Oscar last year for her role in The Reader, was not with her husband at either this year’s Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles or the Baftas in London.

The couple tied the knot in a secret ceremony in the West Indies in May 2003. They have a son, Joe, aged six.