Cheers to Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen's Evolving Love Story - E! Online (2024)

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Ted Danson on "Three Men and a Little Lady": E! News Rewind

If anyone was under the impression that Ted Dansonwas the perfect husband, let him disabuse you of that notion.

"I used to think that I was Mr. Enlightenment, madly present and in love with Mary," he said of his relationship with his wife of28 years, Mary Steenburgen, while onConan O'Brien Needs a Friendin April 2020. "Andtrue—that wastrue. But, I also noticed, Oh, I used to like half-listen and then figure out what she was saying, and then decide what I was going to say and then interrupt her. 'Cause I'm going fast, I'm going fast here."

And the Emmy winneradmitted that onlywhenthe coronavirus pandemic put a stop to travel, film and photo shoots, gatherings, in-person meetings, and pretty much everything else related to their careers as actors and activists did he realize that it might behoove him to slow down.

"There's so many little silver linings in our relationship," he added. "I think we might have gone really fast until the end. And taking this moment almost feels like a little gift."

There's always something.

But their mutual endless appreciation of each other is also a product of having been through this whole marriage thing before (once for Steenburgen and twice for Danson), and learning about themselves in the process, which created a more fertile opportunity for findingjustthe right person to be with for the rest of their days.

Because evenMr. and Mrs. Enlightenmenthad to have their eyes opened along the way.

Opportunity ended up knocking onthe set of the 1994 period family dramaPontiac Moon, starring Danson as a lusting-for-adventure science teacher fascinated by the moon landing in 1969 and Steenburgen as his wife who, after suffering a trauma, won't even the leave the house.

Steenburgen had divorced British actor Malcolm McDowellin 1990 after a decade of marriage and two kids together, actress Lilly McDowell and director Charlie McDowell.Danson, meanwhile, wasn't that far removed from a headline-making relationship withMade in Americaco-star Whoopi Goldbergthat had overlapped with the end of his marriage to second wife Cassandra Coates,the mother of his two daughters, Kate and Alexis.

"We would like to set the record straight,"read a statementreleased by Goldberg and Danson in November 1993. "We are no longer romantically involved."

So let's say that neither star ofPontiac Moonwas looking for any off-screen drama, and no one expected to actually fall in love.

"Ironic how life works in those moments," Danson, who is celebrating his 76th birthday Dec. 29,told Closerin 2018. "Once you throw up your arms and surrender, a lot of times things come your way."

Steenburgen, too, is of the opinion that timing is everything. "We met when we were 40 and 45, and we had lived a bit,"the 70-year-oldtoldPeople in 2018. "We met at a time when both of us had stared down some demons within ourselves and that was lucky that we met then."

Theirs is a union "where the man in the marriage is secure in both his kindness and tenderness, but also in his strength," the Zoey's Extraordinary Playliststarsaid,singing her husband's praises for themagazine's Sexiest Man Aliveissue. "I definitely feel that he is the result of almost like dreams I had when I was young about someone I would want to spend my life with, and I really cherish that and I think neither of us take each other for granted."

Steenburgen continued, "He is just kind to me every single day. If he has an early call, I try to get up while it's still dark and make him coffee and send him off and he does the same for me. I think it's those little kindnesses that completely make up our life that are so appreciated."

He, however, was "immediately smitten," he recalled in 2018 onOff Camera With Sam Jones.He met her when the director, Peter Medak, got them together for dinner to see if they had the necessary chemistry. Basically given the go-ahead to "look this person in the face and in the eyes, at dinner I was just 'Oh my god, look at her,'" he recalled. "She had this thousand-watt bulb going off behind her eyes, she was so light, and so interesting."

He motioned with his head to indicate he was down for the count.

Danson said he didn't find out until later that Steenburgen was suspicious of him, recounting how she had said, "'Ugh, I love the script, but if Ted Danson'sattached to it and he's that Hollywood-slick, Sam Malone-kind of guy...'" But,he felt that she started to look at him differently one day when they were in the lunch lineon set andshe noticed that he was both splattered with paint (takingup painting was part of his "self-discovery," he explained)and had a tear in the back of his jeans, so she could see his "tighty-whities," as she called them.

"And she went, 'Well this guy's not cool,'" Danson said with a laugh. "'He's a doofus! Now I'm interested!'"

They marriedOct. 7, 1995, atDanson's 19th-century farmhousein Chilmark, on Martha's Vineyard, in front of about 150 guests, including Tom Hanksand Rita Wilson;James Taylor,Jeff Goldblum and then-girlfriendLaura Dern;Cheersstarssuch asWoody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer andKirstie Alley;andfirst familyBill and Hillary Clintonand daughter Chelsea(whose wedding Danson and Steenburgen attended 15 years later).

It was a rainy weekend and the bride wore red clogs under herdress to keep her feet dry. Naturally, there was a much larger security presence than even your average A-list wedding would require, due to the 42nd President of the United States being in attendance. The Clintons also attended the rehearsal dinner at the nearby Beach Plum Inn the night before (where Hanks is said to have brought the house down with his toast), and they were a half-hour late to the ceremony because they hung back to let all the other guests file in first, not wanting their motorcade to block traffic.

Fast-forwardnearly three decadesandDanson and Steenburgen's honeymoon period may end one of these days... but probably not!

"[Our love] just gets more profound and deeper as we go through the blessings and joys, but also the hurdles, of life together," Steenburgen told Peoplein 2018. "He is my partner in the deepest sense of the word in this life."

And while they mark momentous events, "I could care less about things like Valentine's Day because literally the appreciation for what I do for him and the way he nurtures me as a woman, as an artist, as an actor, as a songwriter and his celebration of who I am makes me free to fly and be who I am. And I hope I do that for him."

It certainly sounds as if she does, with Dansongushing toUs Weeklyin 2017, "I'm madly in love with Mary Steenburgen. She's a remarkable human being so I'm just incredibly blessed.It feels like heaven on Earth. If I were to die, I can say, I know what it's like to be loved and to love."

They've also worked together quite a bit, perhapsmost notably playing extra versions of themselves onCurb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's Curb version of Larry David being a huge fan ofSteenburgen'sfrom the beginning, but Danson...Eh, not so much. (Of course the later plot point in whichtheysplit up couldn't be further from reality. "He hates happy people," Danson quipped of David to Jimmy Kimmel in 2017.)

They also costarred in the 1996 TV miniseries Gulliver's Travelsand played a couple going through a divorce (but will they go through with it?) in the 2004 TV movie It Must Be Love.Steenburgenguest-starred as alove interest for Danson's playboy publisher on the HBO seriesBored to Deathand had a cameo on the final season ofThe Good Place.

And they truly can't get enough of each other.

Danson called Steenburgen "endlessly fascinating" in a 2013 interview withCBS This Morning, and a week later on the showshe told Gayle King, "Before I met him, I had actually gotten a little cynical about love. I thought infatuation was really about as far as it went, and then I met him and he's the real deal for me. He's definitely heaven-sent."

She continued, practically starting to blush, "He's hilarious, too, and I'm a laugh junkie, so it doesn't hurt to live with somebody that makes you laugh every day of your life. He's just deeply, profoundly funny."

Asked the secret to their lasting love, he toldUs Weeklyin 2018, that "being in love with Mary" did the trick for him. Pressed for a little more detail, he added, "If there's any kind of unspoken or little thing that hasn't been communicated, we don't let it sit. So we don't have anything festering in any way."

He called their relationship "impeccably honest."

"And," he added, "we just like each other! We like each other a lot, we laugh a lot. It's simple."

They didn't have more children together, but they blended their families, andSteenburgen has called her husband "an amazing father, an amazing stepfather and an amazing grandfather."

Danson confided toAARP The Magazinein 2017 that Steenburgen helped quell the anxiety that's always been burbling within him,threatening to spill over.

"There's always fear, and it's all the human stuff," he explained. "Jobs, work, money, kids, health. Usually, when I have a fearful thought, I flip it into gratitude. Like, if I think, Oh dear, where's Mary? She's not home. Something must have happened, I tell myself, Thank God I have the opportunity to be married to a woman whom I love so much. Because that love is what makes me afraid that she might be hurt or something. I tell myself, 'Aren't you lucky?'"

Steenburgen acknowledged that Danson was a bit of a hypochondriac, "but in the most charming way," and she laughed at his perennial concern that he'll never work again.

"In all the years I've known him," she told AARP, "the longest Ted's gone without a job was maybe 20 minutes."

So it would seem as though he wouldn't have aton of work to do on himself when the pandemic hit and he and Steenburgen spent months primarily at home. But he found stuff to tweak all the same.

Discussing whathow it felt to slow down, take care of himself and really listen to his wife instead of interrupting to speed to the next thing, he told Conan O'Brien, "In my little bubble, Mary and I are eating really well and exercising. And just taking that moment to be together in areal way, and deeper than, I think—sorry, I'm rambling."

But he meant to say "deeper than ever before." Because, forhim, there is no limit to how much a guy can keep falling in love with Mary Steenburgen.