Sam Elliott & Katharine Ross: Inside Their Four-Decade Love Story

LOS ANGELES - MARCH 16: Actors Sam Elliott (right) and his wife Katherine Ross arrive at the premiere of Fox Searchlight's — Kevin Winter/Getty Images

A Star Is Born actor Sam Elliott is celebrating his 81st birthday on August 9, and no doubt he’ll be celebrating with his longtime wife, The Graduate alum Katharine Ross. The couple has been married for more than 40 years, a rarity among Hollywood stars.

“We’re in the minority for sure,” Elliott said on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2017. “I think really what it boils down to is, we love each other, and we work at it. And I think more importantly than anything, it takes wanting to be married. The two things that I wanted in my life were to have a movie career and to be married, to have a family. And it’s an embarrassment of riches that I’ve got both.”

In the timeline below, see how Elliott and Ross’s relationship has evolved, both on screen and off.

1969: Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross share the screen in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, Paul Newman, Katharine Ross, 1969.

Both Elliott and Ross appeared in the Western buddy film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But while Ross had a starring role as schoolteacher Etta Place, Elliott only had a bit part as Card Player #2.

“I didn’t dare try to talk to her then,” Elliott said in a 2015 AARP: The Magazine profile. “She was the leading lady. I was a shadow on the wall, a glorified extra in a bar scene.”

1978: They costar in The Legacy

THE LEGACY, Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott, 1978,

“It wasn’t until we made The Legacy that we actually interacted,” Elliott revealed in the AARPinterview.

In that horror film, the future spouses played an American couple encountering a cursed mansion in England, where the film was shot. “It turned out we probably grew up about 80 miles apart in California but we had to go ‘across the pond’ to meet,” Ross told The Tribune in 2019.

And when asked in 2017 by The Mercury News whether it was Elliott’s voice, looks, or mustache that first caught her attention, Ross laughed and said, “Probably all that and more. We were working together, and one thing led to another. And here we are.”

1970s: They buy a Malibu ranch together

Elliott and Ross have a seaside ranch in Malibu, California; they’ve owned the property since the 1970s, according to The Register-Guard. The couple had to flee their ranch in 2018 as the Woolsey Fire ravaged the area, but the property only sustained minor damage from the wildfire, according to The Tribune.

1981: Ross and Elliott costar in the first of several TV movies

CONAGHER, from left, Sam Elliott, Katharine Ross, aired July 1, 1991.

Erik Heinila / ©TNT / courtesy Everett Collection

The husband-and-wife team racked up many more shared filmography entries in the 1980s and early 1990s. During that time, they appeared together in five TV movies: 1981’s Murder in Texas, 1982’s The Shadow Riders, 1983’s Travis McGee, 1986’s Houston: The Legend of Texas, and 1991’s Conagher.

1984: They become husband and wife

Ross and Elliott got married in 1984; it was her fifth wedding and the his first.

More than three decades later, the duo shared the secret to their success in a 2018 interview with The Oklahoman. “You just ride the roller coaster — and hang on tight,” Ross said with a laugh.

Elliott added, “I think the bottom line is you’ve gotta want to be married. You’ve got to be in love with whoever it is, and you’ve got to be willing to work at it because it’s definitely a two-way street.”

1984: They welcome daughter Cleo

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 24: Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott and Cleo Rose Elliott arrive at the Premiere Of Warner Bros. Pictures' 'A Star Is Born' at The Shrine Auditorium on September 24, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

That same year, Elliott and Ross became parents to Cleo Rose Elliott. Cleo is a musician who frequently accompanies her parents to Hollywood events: The three of them attended a 2005 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science screening of The Graduate, for example, and they hit the 2019 Oscars red carpet together.

1990s: The couple buys an Oregon property

In the mid-1990s, Elliott and Ross bought 200 acres of land in Linn County, Oregon, not far from the city of Brownsville, Elliott told The Register-Guard in 2017.

He added that he and Ross had aspirations of living there year-round: “At some point, that’s the dream,” he said. “I’ve always loved the Willamette Valley.”

Ross spoke along similar lines in her Mercury News interview, saying, “We talk about getting out of La La Land and moving up there permanently. But that talk has been going on for a long time.”

2017: They costar yet again in The Hero

In the 2017 drama film The Hero, Elliott starred as a faded Western film star, while Ross had a supporting role as his character’s ex-wife.

Ross explained to The Tribune that working on a movie together is “sometimes easier” than real life. “You’re got a script. You’ve got a part. You’ve got your creative juices flowing together,” she said. “It’s not about the dirty dishes in the sink or whether you’ve picked something up at the laundry.”

And Elliott told AARP: The Magazine that he and Ross were truly committed to one another. “We have a common sensibility, but we also work at being together,” he said. “You work past the s***; you don’t walk away from it. That’s how relationships last.”