Ted Danson revealed that the tip of his hit NBC show “Cheers” paved the best way for his romance with his wife of 28 years, Mary Steenburgen.
The 75-year-old actor played the lead character of Sam Malone within the long-running series, which aired from 1982 to 1993. On Friday, Danson reunited with co-stars George Wendt and John Ratzenberger and “Cheers” co-creators James Burrows, Les Charles and Glen Charles for a panel discussion in regards to the show throughout the ATX TV Festival in Austin, Texas.
While discussing why “Cheers” ended after 11 seasons, Danson admitted that he was behind it. “In my defense, we’d all been talking for a few years [about ending the series],” the two-time Emmy Award winner said, based on People Magazine.
He then added, “Okay, sorry. It was me.”
“My life was a hot mess on the time, and if I had not stopped and gotten it together, I might never have met my wife,” “The Good Place” star explained.
Danson and Steenburgen met for the primary time in 1983 when he auditioned for the role of her on-screen husband within the biographical drama romance film “Cross Creek.” “I used to be married. He was married. That was not our moment,” Steenburgen said of meeting Danson in a 2021 interview with People.
The pair were reunited in 1994 after they co-starred as on-screen spouses in the journey movie “Pontiac Moon.” By that point, each had ended their previous marriages.
Danson and his wife Cassandra Coates split in 1993 and Steenburgen divorced her husband Malcolm McDowell in 1990.
While working together on “Pontiac Moon,” the 2 struck up a friendship. “I wasn’t ready for anything like a relationship. We just kept working together and becoming higher and higher friends,” Steenburgen told People.
Their friendship blossomed into love during a canoe trip with friends in Mendocino, California. “It was very magical,” Danson told People in 2021. “We got here back in love, to be honest, or I’ll say smitten.”
In October 1995, they tied the knot during a ceremony in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, that was attended by then US President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.
After they married, the couple went on to work together within the TV series “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the 2004 romantic comedy “It Must Be Love.”
“I need so long as possible in my life with Mary,” Danson told People. “I do know it would have all of its hard parts, but I need to experience love in all those moments.”
In 2018, Steenburgen told People Magazine that she would “enroll for 100 more lifetimes” with Danson.
“There’s no hole in my heart where I don’t love him, or where I doubt this love,” “The Book Club 2” star said. “There’s no secret place where I say we weren’t a thousand percent imagined to spend our life together.”