They stole America's hearts, an Oscar and no less than $9 million of box-office loot. Less than a year later, star-crossed Once songwriters/lovers Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are done for.

Hansard and Irglová were 37 and 19, respectively, when "nature took its course" in 2007 during their endless publicity rounds for Once — a journey that had begun auspiciously with their film's world premiere that year at Sundance. We're more than a little sad to imagine their busking days behind them and Irglová angrily rolling her gift piano down a flight of stairs behind a fleeing Hansard, but all great Oscar-soliciting affairs must end somehow. And anyway, this provides for a much more dramatic ending to that planned Broadway adaptation.