Another Impressionable Actress Seduced through Use of Flesh-eating Zombies

Of all the directors in Hollywood, a few names would jump to mind as men who would leave their stable marriages because the sight of Rose McGowan's machine-gun leg was utterly irresistible. Spielberg would probably fall prey. We once heard that John Ford was a huge machine-gun-leg fetishist. But Robert Rodriguez? He's so wholesome! He directed Spy Kids. And Spy Kids 3-D! Only loyal family men are allowed to work in the 3-D medium!

Page Six explains in detail (seriously, it's a really long story. Just know Rose and Robert are doing it):

PRODUCTION of "Grindhouse," the much-hyped Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez movie opening Friday, ground to a halt last year when Rodriguez fell for his leading lady, Rose McGowan, and his wife found out.

Rodriguez and his spouse of 16 years, Elizabeth Avellan, raised five kids and worked together, with Elizabeth serving as his co-producer on "Grindhouse," "Sin City," "From Dusk Till Dawn," "Desperado" and "Spy Kids."

But the marriage exploded last April when Page Six reported that Rodriguez, 38, had begun a torrid romance with McGowan, the raven-haired, French-Irish minx once engaged to shock rocker Marilyn Manson and previously linked with Kip Pardue, Ahmet Zappa and Men's Health stud Dave Zinczenko.

"It was the worst-kept secret on the set. They were going off to his trailer, having meals together," our source said. "Rose thought some of the crew were treating her differently, and the attitude was, like, well what do you expect when you're [bleeping] the director?"

In "Grindhouse," Rodriguez's homage to the cheesy sex-and-violence movies of the 1970s, McGowan plays a stripper who loses her leg and replaces it with a machine gun to battle flesh-eating zombies.

She and Rodriguez first met at Cannes in 2005. But until now the consequences of their shenanigans weren't fully known. When the director "fell in love with his femme-fatale star . . . he broke up his marriage of 16 years . . . The production had to shut down for a month while he recovered," Variety reports.

A source told Page Six, "When Elizabeth found out, there was an eruption of emotions - an emotional volcano."

A Dimension Films spokeswoman would only comment: "The hiatus had nothing to do with Robert's personal life."

In the meantime, Rodriguez and McGowan are keeping an ultra-low profile. "They arrived in the same limo for the L.A. premiere, but they got out separately several minutes apart to avoid being seen together," a spy told Page Six.

Rodriguez and Avellan insist that their separation is amicable and that they plan to raise their four boys, Rebel, Rocket, Rogue and Racer, and daughter, Rhiannon, together and continue their partnership in Troublemaker Studios.

Ah, now we get it. Robert was just really slow in finding a proper R-named replacement for his wife, and after years of searching he finally came upon Rose (hehe, came upon. We're twelve). Also, the names of his children clue us in to his life's ambition: to be the star of his very own reality splatter flick entitled The Dismemberment of Robert Rodriguez. He's had the hidden cameras installed since the birth of his first child, and he's been coaching his offspring on the skeletal script, which begins with Rhiannon's brothers taunting her with repeated playings of Fleetwood Mac, with an ensuing screaming match over who has the shittiest and most embarrassing name, and ends with each Rodriguez scion hacking off one of their father's body parts and repeatedly beating one of their siblings with it as blood flies through the air. It'll be bigger than Titanic.

Can't wait for Grindhouse? See Rose naked at MrSkin.com.