Ted Danson Kissed Mary Steenburgen for the First Time in a Canoe
Former Cheers star Ted Danson’s marriage to actress Mary Steenburgen is the rare Hollywood coupling that has stood the test of time. The pair, who met at an audition in the ’80s, reconnected in the ’90s and married in 1995, will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in 2025.
It wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion that the two would stand the test of time — Danson had been married twice, and Steenburgen once, before they got together. But, as Danson told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on Live With Kelly and Mark, their first kiss contained clues of how they would negotiate the rest of their lives together.
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“The first time we kissed was on a river in a canoe in Mendocino,” said Danson. “It was when we both went, ‘Oh, hello.'” But in Danson’s eyes, the location of their first kiss wasn’t just random. “You learn a lot when you watch couples paddle [together],” he said. “You go, ‘Hmmm, that [relationship]’s not gonna work.'”
For Danson and Steenburgen, however, the canoe ride was a sign of how their lives together would work out. “It was also sort of the path of our lives, because I was in the back, and she kept going ‘Oh, let’s go around the next curve,’ and I kept going ‘Oh … okay,’ recalled Danson. “And that’s our life now. She keeps going around another curve, and I’m like ‘Can’t we just … ?’ Nope, no.”
Though Danson fondly remembers their early relationship and proposal, he says that life with Steenburgen is even better three decades in: “You love each other, and you’re madly in love when you fall in love. [And] you’re now, 30 years later, [still] madly in love, but your love is like so much bigger because it is deeper and has life behind it.”
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How will the pair celebrate their 30th? Danson revealed that their anniversary tradition honors the location of their first kiss … but as the years pass, their celebrations have gotten a bit less ambitious.
To remember that first canoe date, “We would get on water, we would take a canoe out every anniversary,” said Danson. “And then, as the years went by, we jumped in the ocean, and then at the pool, and then, a bathtub … I have no idea where we go now. A glass of water?”
Danson has been out promoting his new Netflix show, A Man on the Inside, in which he plays a college professor who is hired by a private detective to go undercover in a senior living facility. It premieres on Nov. 21.
Remind 
February 2021
1990s Rom-Coms
Pop some popcorn and cozy up to feel-good movies and TV shows from a generation ago.
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