Feb. 4, 2026
LOVE STORIES: 99-Year-Old William Daniels and 96-Year-Old Bonnie Bartlett, One of Hollywood’s Most Enduring Couples
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RSS Feed Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels have been married for more than 74 years, making them one of the longest-married couples in entertainment history. The two met as young actors at Northwestern University and built parallel, decades-long careers in television and film, most memorably starring together as husband and wife on St. Elsewhere, a collaboration that led to a historic moment in 1986 when they both won Emmy Awards on the same night. Over the years, William became a television icon as Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere, the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, and beloved teacher Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, while Bonnie carved out a seven-decade career with standout roles on Little House on the Prairie and St. Elsewhere. Their marriage has not been without challenges and the two sat down with Amy and T.J. to discuss how their relationship has stood the test of time.
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00:00:04
Speaker 1: This is Amy and TJ Love Stories.
00:00:14
Speaker 2: William and Bonnie join us now on our love story series. Thank you both for being with us. And how are you two doing today?
00:00:24
Speaker 3: I feel pretty good. We did a conventional Sunday so that was tiring, but we're pretty good for our age, we're pretty good.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: And will you tell our podcast listeners how long the two of you have been together?
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Actually, we've been together more than seventy five years. It's more like seventy eight years we've been together. Wow, I met Bill when I was eighteen.
00:00:53
Speaker 1: Oh well, nos, can we go back? How long were you dating before you got engaged? And then how long were you engaged before you got married?
00:01:09
Speaker 3: Well, we never did anything officially like that, do you know what I mean? We did get married. My mother insisted we got had a little wedding and so forth, and in my backyard in Illinois, but it was never very Bill, How did the family? How did your family take it when you told them you were going to marry me?
00:01:33
Speaker 4: Badly?
00:01:35
Speaker 3: And mine too did not want No what do you want to say?
00:01:42
Speaker 4: I hadn't done munch in the business at that time, so I can't understand their concern about her hooking up with me, didn't.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: Have a penny.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: So how did you win them over?
00:02:05
Speaker 3: How did I win Bill over?
00:02:07
Speaker 5: No?
00:02:08
Speaker 1: Bill, how did you win over her family?
00:02:12
Speaker 4: My only when I started actually working, I thought, well, I guess he can do this.
00:02:21
Speaker 3: Well.
00:02:23
Speaker 4: Then they turned alief and became more friendly, and her mother across the room silently looked at me and said, I love you.
00:02:41
Speaker 3: And I thought, well, I'm in. But my brother, my brother always left him. My brother was his fan. Yeah, and none of his family were fans of mine. No, No, they did not. They did not think I was good enough for their Bill. I didn't think I was pretty enough, you know. The only thing that they did like my family. They liked my family, but they didn't like me. And it's because his mother didn't want to lose him. I think that anybody he married she would not have liked that. She didn't want to lose him, and she was hoping he would be her meal ticket. Definitely, definitely, Bonnie.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: Did you ever win her over? Did you ever win over his family?
00:03:34
Speaker 3: Sometimes when there were problems, No, when there were problems, they were horrible to me. There were a lot of problems among the family and among marriages and stuff like that the girls had problems and if I ever suggested something like maybe you should see a therapist and work it out, oh man, they killed me. They said, just because you're crazy. We're crazy. And we had a lot of bad times. Yeah, did not have bad times with my family. Really, there's no question that they were, you know, against him. But because he was an actor and my father had been an actor, my mother didn't want Bill to be an actor, I mean, didn't want me to marry an actor. But it was I would say, for the time, we did all right. In that time, you really did have to pay attention to your parents. I'm talking a long time ago, nineteen fifty one, you know, and people were kids were still paying attention to their parents. Now wouldn't matter, you know you, but anyway, but yeah, it.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Still seems like, even in today's times, if you have families that are completely against your union, that is a tough position for your relationship. That's a lot of pressure, that's a lot of stress to know that both sides aren't happy about the two of you being together. What brought you guys together in the first place, What made you all fall in love with one another that you could resist or even deal with having families against your relationship.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: Well, Billy, you tell this story about the play auditioning for the play at Northwestern. I was eighteen and he was maybe I was nineteen by that time, but they were about eighteen and he had been in the army for two years. So we were put A lot of the freshman actors were put in groups, and then they from within those groups they cast plays. So we happened to be put in the same group. So what happened?
00:05:51
Speaker 4: Bill, I've been on Broadway at the time, so I was kind of pretty much killed with myself. And I sat there and listened as the teacher pointed to each person to say something, and I heard, oh, a bunch of them say something, and I thought they were casting into the play, you see, And I thought, oh, no, this is going to be a bomb. I mean these people until I heard a voice in the back of the room and I turned around and there was this blonde with a very good voice. So I waited for her when we were dismissed, and I waited for her at the door, and she came by me and I said, I said, I'll out a cup of coffee.
00:07:02
Speaker 3: She said, you're too short.
00:07:07
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, that's right, how about a cup of coffee?
00:07:12
Speaker 3: All right?
00:07:13
Speaker 4: It turns out, I find out much later she'd been following me at a distance on the campus at Northwestern because she had heard I've been in New York on.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: Broad and I loved his leather jacket jacket. But what I really meant you're too short? I said, I mean, you know, I admired him, and i'd heard this kind of phony voice, and I thought, what's that you know in some of the rooms. But the thing is that I was a big girl and I was used to big, tall guys. And what I meant was I didn't mean really that he was too short. I was really saying, I'm not right for you. But it came out wrong.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: It came maybe you were playing hard to get or something, or wanting to make sure I wasn't.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: Playing a game. It's just, oh, no, you're too short. You know, I'm too big for you. I mean, you know. But anyway, that was from that moment on, we were not separate. We did everything together. He he called me, and he didn't have any money, but I had an allowance, so I would pay for the movies. I would pay for the food. I paid for everything, and and we just I was a nobody ever said anything. We were just together. It was like, okay, now here we are, we're together. That's it. And from then on it was Bonnie and Bill, or Bill and Bonnie or whatever. But you know how you would do which I loved Bill. Never you know, was wrote love letters or anything like that. But he he used to sing to me. We'd be in a restaurant having a hamburger or whatever, and he sing He sing all the Frank Sinatra songs.
00:09:15
Speaker 4: I didn't have any money she was paying for so he was singing for.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: And he sang those songs so well. He loved Frank, so he did that. We both loved Frank Sinatra. He was really part of our life, you know. And later we get to know his daughter very well. But he for some reason, I would say that that Sinatra was part of everybody's love life.
00:09:48
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: It was just he When he sang to you, it was like he was singing to you, and it was all part of our lives at that time.
00:09:56
Speaker 4: He was.
00:09:57
Speaker 3: He was wonderful.
00:09:59
Speaker 2: I love the memories you have of Bill singing to you. That's so sweet. I was wondering who said I love you first? Do you all remember that? Members?
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Neither one of us we knew. It was all unspoken. It was like we never had to say anything. When we got married. We don't remember we wanted to do it. We just remember that we you know, in those days, you couldn't sleep together before you got married. So we had no place to go, and so we decided we'd get married and that was it. It was really for the sex, but we were totally bound together. Getting married was so that we could have a place to have sex.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: Do you really not remember who said I love you first? And when you started saying it to each other.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: We don't talk like that.
00:11:09
Speaker 4: We are not, you know.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: I mean occasionally Bill will I'm terrible, I'm the worst, but occasionally he will write something something nice, you know, on a card or something. But I don't know, I don't know. We just have always from the time we met, we have belonged together. There was no We went through a lot of hard times, don't get me wrong, but it was we were just together and we were meant to be or something. You know. It was. I guess you can't call it romantic, but you can call it something else. I don't know.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: What do you admirable?
00:11:57
Speaker 5: Beautiful, lack of a least, that's funny.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: I'm curious. You've been together for over seventy years. Do you all still fight? Did you ever fight a lot? I'm curious about what that daily interaction has evolved into over the years.
00:12:22
Speaker 3: We have thought, but not the way people fight. I mean, we're certainly not Bickerson's at all at all, none of that, because that's so annoying. But I do remember a terrible time when he was really mean to me and I was playing. I had a big part on the soap opera, so I was making a lot of money at that time, and I think it was getting to him finally, and I remember we were going out. It was it was an anniversary, yes, And I don't remember what the argument was. We went to a very nice restaurant, and I think it's because because he was getting to him at that point, he was not working at all and I was making a lot of money and he did something to me. He got so angry that at me, and I don't know what I did that made him meant, but I remember he walked out and we were supposed to go to a play, and I went to a play, went to the play and sat there and cried the whole had no idea what the play was about, and then it was over. I think he just couldn't stand it anymore that he wasn't working making a living, you know, because that Bill's whole thing in life, and I guess it's probably every man's is he wants to be the breadwinner, he wants to take care of everybody, he wants to make the money, and all of that he didn't mind when he was young, but when he was married and I was, and then when I left the soap opera. I had the lead on the soap opera for three and a half years, and when I left it, I was so nervous because I said, Who's where's the money going to be? But at that point Bill was doing Edward Alby's first play, The Zoos Story, and it became absolutely a humendous hit, and everything else that had that Edward I'll Be wrote after that, and even though Bill wasn't making money because it was off Broadway, he made a huge imprint on the New York State. And from that time on he said, don't worry, I'm going to do it. I'll make the money, and he did. He just did. And from that time and it went on and on and on and Broadway, one play after another, finally with the seventeen seventy six and from then on out here. Although I didn't want to come out here, that was a big moment in our life because I didn't want to come out here, but I finally did, and he got me working. Well, I've skipped two children because that was my favorite time. But anyway, he I don't know. Bill is kind of remarkable and when he's been able to make a great deal of money and he's always wanted to make a living, never wanted to be a star. I don't think either one of us. We just want to work, make money. And it's been roughs at times. That was a rough time. I remember that moment in that restaurant going to that play, and I don't remember why he was angry with me. I don't think I had done anything, but he just he just walked out. You don't even remember it. He has no memory of it at all.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: Is there a point at which you can actually look back at some of those tough times, in those tough years with the perspective you have now and you can laugh about it. It seems so serious and it's so important in the moment, But with perspective, does it seem almost like silly?
00:16:42
Speaker 5: In moments?
00:16:43
Speaker 2: What we fight over, what we're fighting for?
00:16:47
Speaker 3: No, don't go good, gole ahead.
00:16:49
Speaker 4: That's a zoo story. Kind of put me on the map in New York because it's won a lot of attention and everybody came to say awards and I am. I was very happy about us. That's all I can say.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: You mentioned rough times, but do you all remember a time where you got close to the relationship actually ending?
00:17:23
Speaker 3: As I said, that was the worst time. When he finished seventeen seventy six and he said, I don't want to do theater. He was offered two big plays Chicago and another play and with wonderful actresses, and he said, no, I want to go to California. I don't want to go to California. And he said, yes, I want to go and live in California like a normal person. Well, it was the best thing he had ever decided, but I didn't think so until later. We had two children and he wanted to raise them in California, and that was another thing we had. We had lost a child. We didn't get pregnant and for a long time, and then Barna got pregnant and then the baby didn't survive the birth. And we adopted two wonderful, wonderful boys, and they have been a joy for me. I think if I think the boys really cemented our marriage, I really do, because we both just subtort them and we both loved having them. And he wanted to come to California because he wanted to be a dad in California. He wanted the boys. He wanted to work in television and movies and not have to go to the theater every night. He just didn't want to do it anymore, and I was resisting. I was so proud of him, and I thought, how can you throw it away? Throw away to the theater after you work so hard.
00:19:06
Speaker 4: People don't realize how eight or week is difficult. Yeah, but it is. And I was in it for a long time.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: So two years plus.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, two years plus.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: You know how hard that is to do a show eight times a week, the same show and keep it fresh and good. And he did. He's amazing on the stage. He can do it, keep it fresh, for two years. I couldn't do that.
00:19:36
Speaker 2: I have marveled at when you go see one show on Broadway and think these actors are giving it there all each night, every night, doing the same thing. I'm sure you mix it up a little bit, but yes, that's not lost at least on us going to see Broadway as often as we do. My hat is off. Our hats are off to anyone who can do that so well each and every night and make each audience feel special because they're seeing it for the first time, even if you're reliving it for the umpteenth time. But you make a good point, Bonnie. You talk about how you didn't want to move to California, and so much of relationships as we're asking folks who have made it through the tough times, how much is compromise and sacrifice a part of making a relationship not just last but succeed.
00:20:29
Speaker 3: Oh a lot. I mean, what you have you have in seventy five years, you can imagine. I mean you have a lot to it's really calm now, of course when you're very old, but you have a lot to go through and you got to get through it, and sometimes things are what you want it to be, But you know what you can always say, But there is a more important There's a more important here that is more important than anything we ever do, and that's the longevity of it, being the parents of our children that I think is so important. I think people give up too soon. I think people have to be more forgiving with each other and and they'll find themselves if they're meant to, they will find themselves. If it can work, it will. If somebody drinks too much or takes dope or something non then that's impossible. But you know, those things are impossible. But you can work things out most of the time, unless it's those very serious things. I call those the serious things. Yes, you can work things out.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Another question we've asked the couples the idea of going to bed angry. Did you all try to avoid going to bed angry throughout your marriage?
00:22:08
Speaker 4: I don't remember doing anything.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: He has no memory. No, But there have been times when we have gone to bed silently, ah, you know, silently but not fighting, but just silently. When there have been times that were tough, we were still there and you get up the next morning and start all over, and it's okay. But no, I never I don't think I recently, oh, yes, recently, we were going to be I was mad at him for some reason. I can't remember what it was, even because I'm rarely mad at him, but I can get annoyed as I and I said, oh c and he said, I have never heard you say that before, and it is not becoming. And that was just like a month ago before the first time I ever said.
00:23:20
Speaker 2: What did you say? In response to that?
00:23:22
Speaker 3: I didn't know why I said it. I mean, I was like, I don't talk like that. I mean, not to him, my wife. You don't talk like that to Bill, but I have. I have occasionally been angry doing something, oh you know, that sort of thing, but not at somebody. I don't do that. And I thought, wow, you know you changed over the years. That's one of the biggest things that happens in a relationship is that people change. If they change for the better, it's good. And then health changes a little bit, and you change a little and you change, and if the are bad, then it breaks it up.
00:24:04
Speaker 1: Wait, money, seventy five years together and that was the first time you said, f you, what happened?
00:24:14
Speaker 3: It was stupid. It was a little thing. I was annoying. He was didn't hear what I said or something, and it was just I just got annoying. That's what I Oh you, Bonnie.
00:24:28
Speaker 2: Do you all at this point do you all go on dates? Do you all have date night? Do you all prioritize your relationship or do you just live your lives. I'm curious that this stage in your relationship do you focus on creating special moments together?
00:24:48
Speaker 4: Well?
00:24:48
Speaker 3: I do remember one thing. Do you remember when you were doing seventeen seventy six and we had two kids, and we could hardly see each other because he he worked all the time and and you know, spend a little time with the kids, but not a lot. So I would book the what is the big hotel in New York, the Park, the big hotel, Laza. I would book a room at the Plaza for the weekend, and I would go. He would on Saturday, he would go off to the theater to do his two performances, and so he would go and do the afternoon. Might I might go book the show, I might go see the show, watch the show or not. I might go shopping down Fifth Avenue, which was a treat, and I might do there might be a movie there, that little foreign movie place while he was performing, and then when he wasn't performing, he'd come over to the hotel and we go to bed. I mean you know, I mean he would just come over and we spent the day in bed, or you know, the sunday and you are going to our favorite place or something. You know, Yeah, completely away from the kids and everything. It was a kind of a sex date.
00:26:16
Speaker 5: Okay, sex Bill.
00:26:19
Speaker 1: How important has sex been in you all's relationship? You've brought it up a few times, none of you. She's been talking about it.
00:26:37
Speaker 3: It was the reason that we got married, not the reason that we've stayed married.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: You go, I love that. What what?
00:26:45
Speaker 3: How?
00:26:46
Speaker 2: How would you describe? What is the reason why divorce rates are what they are? What would you say is the reason why the two of you stayed together and got through those tough times? What is it about your relationship that made it work?
00:27:02
Speaker 3: And last? Even though we never said it, we love each other and we want to help each other. We want to be partnered and both of us, so that's it. Even though we don't you don't speak poetry or anything, we we love Shakespeare. Those poems are wonderful.
00:27:26
Speaker 2: What did you? I know you said you fought and you thought, did you? What did you learn along the way about yourself? I know a lot of times when you fight and you have issues and problems, you grow and people talk about how they evolve, and you've even said you've changed throughout your relationship, so you end up being different people throughout your relationship. Were there lessons that you learned after getting through tough times some of the fights you had together? What did you learn about yourself and about each other?
00:27:57
Speaker 3: What have we learned? I guess I just I think we both feel successful. We both feel successful, and we both have because of the boys. We have learned to really love. That's when you really love your children. It's nothing like it. And we both share the same thing with them. So we've been very lucky.
00:28:29
Speaker 4: Our boys are really tremendous people, they really are, both of them. Ones in New York. We don't see enough of them, but the one here is a tremendous help for us.
00:28:47
Speaker 3: He is very.
00:28:50
Speaker 4: Aware and giving and sharing his time with us. And I think it's very unusual.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's very unusual. I never was that one with my parents.
00:29:18
Speaker 2: What have your I'm curious have you imparted any relationship wisdom to your sons. Have they looked at you and said, wow, I want to have a relationship like mom and dad. What advice have you given them or have they told you they've learned from watching the two of you and your relationship together.
00:29:41
Speaker 3: We wouldn't know what they've learned because they one of the boys that we adopted was Jewish, or you know, it is Jewish, and he's gone in a slightly different way, not that he's not a really religious guy or anything, but he's Jewish. So they don't celebrate Christmas, you know, they have honqu and things like that. And our other son, who is so marvelous here, has had a bad not a bad marriage, but a marriage that didn't didn't go on, you know, And then he married later another wonderful lady and he seems to be really happy now. So that makes us very happy. Those things matter in your life so much, so much. And we have four grandchildren and they're all terrific. They're all very different, and they're all terrific, and they join us occasionally and do stuff with us. And you know, right now they're struggling and the economy so that's hard for them, but they're okay, they're fine. They're fine, and.
00:31:04
Speaker 5: We like that.
00:31:06
Speaker 1: You said earlier that you feel successful. Yeah, and you spoke earlier a lot about career. But now I see you both light up when you talk about family. So when you said successful, how much of that were you talking about family and personal versus career?
00:31:26
Speaker 3: All of the things, all the things, really, really, all the things, everything we do. We've been very lucky and it has helped. For instance, when we came out to California and I had been taking care of kids and I loved it. I didn't want to leave New York. I want to stay there and have them go to the schools and do all that. I had sort of stopped acting because I went on the road a couple of times. I couldn't stand it. I could not stand it. Had somebody given me this lead role in a movie and I've had to go away for three months or something like that, I suppose I would have done it, and I would have been miserable.
00:32:11
Speaker 4: It would have.
00:32:12
Speaker 3: Been such a mistake because you got to be there with the kids. You've got to be there with the little ones, you know, as they grow up and it's such a joy, and it's such a feeling of doing something important. As much as I love acting as much and I dearly love it, it's not important, not like a relationship.
00:32:37
Speaker 4: It isn't.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: That's very cool to hear because I think that's something that a lot of people don't recognize until it's too late. You recognized it in the moment, and that's beautiful when it comes to you. Bonnie and Bill, would you say that your friends that your best friends? How much has friendship played a role in your romance.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: When we were younger, yes, we had a lot of wonderful friends, but when we became more of a family, it changed. But we have had We had wonderful friends in New York. We had like a balanchine dancer, a musician in the opera, or what do you call it, a news guy, you know, travelers. We had wonderful friends there in New York who are still our friends.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: And have you all been able to have a friendship with one another? Do you consider each other? Bonnie? Do you consider Bill your best friend? And vice versa.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: He's the person's there if you need him. You know, he always came to help me acting. He would come and help me if I was in trouble, and sometimes help him. We're each other's best critic. I will say that we don't lie. You know, we don't lie, and and that's been good because then you can trust somebody if they don't lie. If somebody lies to you, then you can't trust them. But if you know it's it's it's better to say no, you just weren't there. You just weren't. It was like you didn't want to be on the stage that helps you so much.
00:34:26
Speaker 2: Exactly what you all would critique each other's work, Oh yes, oh yes all the time.
00:34:32
Speaker 3: Yes, or somebody a director can sometimes say something that's very harmful, not hurtful, but harmful to your work. And when that would happen, the other person was always there to say what was really going on?
00:34:49
Speaker 1: No?
00:34:49
Speaker 3: And we we did a We put that scene together in a Thousand Clowns in our apartment, with the scene where Sandy hid in the clouse. No, you hit in the closet or was it Sandy who was in the closet. I can't remember, but it was a funny, funny scene and we kind of worked on that. So we would work on things if we had to when we did say't elsewhere, we didn't ever rehearse. We didn't have to.
00:35:19
Speaker 1: Who was the tougher critic him?
00:35:25
Speaker 3: I'm much Yeah. No, he's very tough. And he doesn't like to go to the theater. He doesn't like to even go to a movie anymore. He used to go to the movies and love him. But the theater, he said, Oh, I sit there, and what is it when you go to the theater that you don't like?
00:35:42
Speaker 4: Well, I look at it a different way than the audience would. I look at it as somebody who has been up there and knows what they're going through. So it's a kind of a critical thing, and it takes away the fact that I'm not enjoying it. I let's see, I'm being critical or upset that they're doing something that they probably shouldn't do.
00:36:18
Speaker 3: When Bill gets a script, he looks at it for all the wrong things. He says, that's no good, that's no good, there's no three acts. Most actors we look at it from the point of that's a nice part. Oh yeah, ok, yeah, I can do that, and we don't judge the whole thing as much. Most of us, not all the smart ones, are like Bill, and it makes such a difference because then you're not disappointed. I mean, he knows going in what the problems are, and most of us don't because we're so involved in our part. You know, I'm doing the part and everything.
00:37:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very that's very sweet to hear your admiration of his intellect and his ability to be critical for all the right reasons. That's actually really beautiful. I'm curious. Obviously, you guys were both so busy with your careers and with your sons. Now that all of that has gone away and it's just the two of you. I know your other son is still there often, but how do you two, how is your relationship today now when it's just the two of you, the noise is gone, that the showbiz isn't necessarily center stage now it's the two of you. How would you describe your life together now after all these years?
00:37:45
Speaker 3: Very peaceful. He needs me. I have to be here all the time. He doesn't like me to go away. He doesn't. It's like, you know, so I'm kind of housebound sometimes more than I want to be, but I get out, but he likes me to be you know, or close, doesn't like me to go away for a day. No, he doesn't, and that's fine because I'm fine with him. I was going to say something, and oh, I know what I was going to say. I'm going to put in a plug. We have a online store and it's called Bill and Bonnie Daniels dot com. And here's a card from it, and my son, the son in New York, he kind of runs it, and he said he's going to put up a sale February, you know, like Valentine's Day kind of thing, sale of all the pictures that are the two of us together from the past and I'm now, and people can get him on a sale, a big sale. So I promised him. I plug that.
00:39:01
Speaker 5: That is amazing.
00:39:03
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: That is so sweet. So what is an What is a day like for the two of you at home? You say you're with Bill most days all what's the day like?
00:39:13
Speaker 3: I usually get up first. I'm up earlier, and I puts around and do a few things that I have to do. Bill gets up a little later. He makes his own breakfast. I never learned to make coffee because I don't drink coffee. So he gets up, he makes his own breakfast. He makes well. He makes coffee, of course, he loves grapefruit in the morning, and he will have English muffins. Or if we go out to Arts Delhi, he loves to go out for breakfast. That's his big thing, to go out for breakfast. And there he'll have a big breakfast. And then he reaches the New York Times. Time it comes to the door, he picks up the paper. He sits in the chair in the living room and he reads the New York Times for a couple of hours. Then the best paper in the world. And then we'll, uh, we don't exactly have lunch. We don't really have lunch, but you know, we'll eat a little bit. But he about three o'clock, he likes to Oh, we work out. We have a wonderful lady who works us out twice a week. And they're very you know, strenuous. It's good, it's very good for us. Hep us he's ninety, gonna be ninety nine, and he's strongly taking me. His heart is so strong. It's wonderful. He's so healthy. And and then he will start he'll watch he likes to watch MSNBC. He still will watch Seinfeld loves Seinfeld. He watches those. And I like movies, so I'll go and computer and watch Netflix movie because they take me out of it. You know, I'm fine with that. Then we had an early dinner. We have a woman who brings us food. Bill used to be a great cook. He was really a good cook. Our son here is even better than do and he but that's how he started. And he's wonderful and we but but Bill doesn't cook anymore. But we have a lady who brings in food, and I can put it together, do you know what I mean? But I don't And I never did cook a lot. I cooked for the kids when I was little, when they were little, I did And I don't know. And then we go to bed about eight thirty nine o'clock. Sat a lot easy enough. We do conventions. We still like to make money. And so if we can go to a convention and make a a bunch of money and see all the peace people and make them happy, of course, but we'd like to make the money. We do that.
00:42:06
Speaker 2: Some things never change. It's always good to make a little money.
00:42:08
Speaker 3: I hear you, especially in this time. Never know what's going to happen.
00:42:15
Speaker 1: Okay, last thing, I'm sure you get this question all the time, but we'll ask it here. When people come up and they hear you've been married this long, they want to know what's the secret? How do you make it last? So what do you tell them?
00:42:33
Speaker 3: Lack of imagination?
00:42:36
Speaker 5: That's he that's good.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: I guess it's it's kind of I guess we don't know it, but it's probably because we want to be together. We always want to be together. I guess you call that love.
00:42:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess you call that love, love and like and all of the love. But yeah, that's like, if you have a desire, you can make it up, make it work.
00:43:06
Speaker 3: We feel safe with each other, you know, we feel very safe with each other, and we're very happy to be together all day every day.
00:43:16
Speaker 2: I love that. And what a gift. What a gift to your sons, and what a gift to us for sharing your love story because it is beautiful and and it's something to be proud of. Talk about success marriage where you both can sit next to each other with smiles on your face and talk about the good times and the bad times. And Bill there is ninety nine years old, and y'all are still sitting next to each other with smiles. That is success. So congratulations. We aspire more like the two of you in every way. Thank you so I love Bill and Bonnie. We belong together. Thank you so much for being here and being with us on this podcast. We have learned so much from you and I just appreciate you sharing your love story with us.
00:44:04
Speaker 3: Thank you. You've been very sweet.
00:44:07
Speaker 5: Say your bell
00:44:10
Speaker 3: Bye guys, Bye bye
Speaker 1: This is Amy and TJ Love Stories.
00:00:14
Speaker 2: William and Bonnie join us now on our love story series. Thank you both for being with us. And how are you two doing today?
00:00:24
Speaker 3: I feel pretty good. We did a conventional Sunday so that was tiring, but we're pretty good for our age, we're pretty good.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: And will you tell our podcast listeners how long the two of you have been together?
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Actually, we've been together more than seventy five years. It's more like seventy eight years we've been together. Wow, I met Bill when I was eighteen.
00:00:53
Speaker 1: Oh well, nos, can we go back? How long were you dating before you got engaged? And then how long were you engaged before you got married?
00:01:09
Speaker 3: Well, we never did anything officially like that, do you know what I mean? We did get married. My mother insisted we got had a little wedding and so forth, and in my backyard in Illinois, but it was never very Bill, How did the family? How did your family take it when you told them you were going to marry me?
00:01:33
Speaker 4: Badly?
00:01:35
Speaker 3: And mine too did not want No what do you want to say?
00:01:42
Speaker 4: I hadn't done munch in the business at that time, so I can't understand their concern about her hooking up with me, didn't.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: Have a penny.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: So how did you win them over?
00:02:05
Speaker 3: How did I win Bill over?
00:02:07
Speaker 5: No?
00:02:08
Speaker 1: Bill, how did you win over her family?
00:02:12
Speaker 4: My only when I started actually working, I thought, well, I guess he can do this.
00:02:21
Speaker 3: Well.
00:02:23
Speaker 4: Then they turned alief and became more friendly, and her mother across the room silently looked at me and said, I love you.
00:02:41
Speaker 3: And I thought, well, I'm in. But my brother, my brother always left him. My brother was his fan. Yeah, and none of his family were fans of mine. No, No, they did not. They did not think I was good enough for their Bill. I didn't think I was pretty enough, you know. The only thing that they did like my family. They liked my family, but they didn't like me. And it's because his mother didn't want to lose him. I think that anybody he married she would not have liked that. She didn't want to lose him, and she was hoping he would be her meal ticket. Definitely, definitely, Bonnie.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: Did you ever win her over? Did you ever win over his family?
00:03:34
Speaker 3: Sometimes when there were problems, No, when there were problems, they were horrible to me. There were a lot of problems among the family and among marriages and stuff like that the girls had problems and if I ever suggested something like maybe you should see a therapist and work it out, oh man, they killed me. They said, just because you're crazy. We're crazy. And we had a lot of bad times. Yeah, did not have bad times with my family. Really, there's no question that they were, you know, against him. But because he was an actor and my father had been an actor, my mother didn't want Bill to be an actor, I mean, didn't want me to marry an actor. But it was I would say, for the time, we did all right. In that time, you really did have to pay attention to your parents. I'm talking a long time ago, nineteen fifty one, you know, and people were kids were still paying attention to their parents. Now wouldn't matter, you know you, but anyway, but yeah, it.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Still seems like, even in today's times, if you have families that are completely against your union, that is a tough position for your relationship. That's a lot of pressure, that's a lot of stress to know that both sides aren't happy about the two of you being together. What brought you guys together in the first place, What made you all fall in love with one another that you could resist or even deal with having families against your relationship.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: Well, Billy, you tell this story about the play auditioning for the play at Northwestern. I was eighteen and he was maybe I was nineteen by that time, but they were about eighteen and he had been in the army for two years. So we were put A lot of the freshman actors were put in groups, and then they from within those groups they cast plays. So we happened to be put in the same group. So what happened?
00:05:51
Speaker 4: Bill, I've been on Broadway at the time, so I was kind of pretty much killed with myself. And I sat there and listened as the teacher pointed to each person to say something, and I heard, oh, a bunch of them say something, and I thought they were casting into the play, you see, And I thought, oh, no, this is going to be a bomb. I mean these people until I heard a voice in the back of the room and I turned around and there was this blonde with a very good voice. So I waited for her when we were dismissed, and I waited for her at the door, and she came by me and I said, I said, I'll out a cup of coffee.
00:07:02
Speaker 3: She said, you're too short.
00:07:07
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, that's right, how about a cup of coffee?
00:07:12
Speaker 3: All right?
00:07:13
Speaker 4: It turns out, I find out much later she'd been following me at a distance on the campus at Northwestern because she had heard I've been in New York on.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: Broad and I loved his leather jacket jacket. But what I really meant you're too short? I said, I mean, you know, I admired him, and i'd heard this kind of phony voice, and I thought, what's that you know in some of the rooms. But the thing is that I was a big girl and I was used to big, tall guys. And what I meant was I didn't mean really that he was too short. I was really saying, I'm not right for you. But it came out wrong.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: It came maybe you were playing hard to get or something, or wanting to make sure I wasn't.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: Playing a game. It's just, oh, no, you're too short. You know, I'm too big for you. I mean, you know. But anyway, that was from that moment on, we were not separate. We did everything together. He he called me, and he didn't have any money, but I had an allowance, so I would pay for the movies. I would pay for the food. I paid for everything, and and we just I was a nobody ever said anything. We were just together. It was like, okay, now here we are, we're together. That's it. And from then on it was Bonnie and Bill, or Bill and Bonnie or whatever. But you know how you would do which I loved Bill. Never you know, was wrote love letters or anything like that. But he he used to sing to me. We'd be in a restaurant having a hamburger or whatever, and he sing He sing all the Frank Sinatra songs.
00:09:15
Speaker 4: I didn't have any money she was paying for so he was singing for.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: And he sang those songs so well. He loved Frank, so he did that. We both loved Frank Sinatra. He was really part of our life, you know. And later we get to know his daughter very well. But he for some reason, I would say that that Sinatra was part of everybody's love life.
00:09:48
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: It was just he When he sang to you, it was like he was singing to you, and it was all part of our lives at that time.
00:09:56
Speaker 4: He was.
00:09:57
Speaker 3: He was wonderful.
00:09:59
Speaker 2: I love the memories you have of Bill singing to you. That's so sweet. I was wondering who said I love you first? Do you all remember that? Members?
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Neither one of us we knew. It was all unspoken. It was like we never had to say anything. When we got married. We don't remember we wanted to do it. We just remember that we you know, in those days, you couldn't sleep together before you got married. So we had no place to go, and so we decided we'd get married and that was it. It was really for the sex, but we were totally bound together. Getting married was so that we could have a place to have sex.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: Do you really not remember who said I love you first? And when you started saying it to each other.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: We don't talk like that.
00:11:09
Speaker 4: We are not, you know.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: I mean occasionally Bill will I'm terrible, I'm the worst, but occasionally he will write something something nice, you know, on a card or something. But I don't know, I don't know. We just have always from the time we met, we have belonged together. There was no We went through a lot of hard times, don't get me wrong, but it was we were just together and we were meant to be or something. You know. It was. I guess you can't call it romantic, but you can call it something else. I don't know.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: What do you admirable?
00:11:57
Speaker 5: Beautiful, lack of a least, that's funny.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: I'm curious. You've been together for over seventy years. Do you all still fight? Did you ever fight a lot? I'm curious about what that daily interaction has evolved into over the years.
00:12:22
Speaker 3: We have thought, but not the way people fight. I mean, we're certainly not Bickerson's at all at all, none of that, because that's so annoying. But I do remember a terrible time when he was really mean to me and I was playing. I had a big part on the soap opera, so I was making a lot of money at that time, and I think it was getting to him finally, and I remember we were going out. It was it was an anniversary, yes, And I don't remember what the argument was. We went to a very nice restaurant, and I think it's because because he was getting to him at that point, he was not working at all and I was making a lot of money and he did something to me. He got so angry that at me, and I don't know what I did that made him meant, but I remember he walked out and we were supposed to go to a play, and I went to a play, went to the play and sat there and cried the whole had no idea what the play was about, and then it was over. I think he just couldn't stand it anymore that he wasn't working making a living, you know, because that Bill's whole thing in life, and I guess it's probably every man's is he wants to be the breadwinner, he wants to take care of everybody, he wants to make the money, and all of that he didn't mind when he was young, but when he was married and I was, and then when I left the soap opera. I had the lead on the soap opera for three and a half years, and when I left it, I was so nervous because I said, Who's where's the money going to be? But at that point Bill was doing Edward Alby's first play, The Zoos Story, and it became absolutely a humendous hit, and everything else that had that Edward I'll Be wrote after that, and even though Bill wasn't making money because it was off Broadway, he made a huge imprint on the New York State. And from that time on he said, don't worry, I'm going to do it. I'll make the money, and he did. He just did. And from that time and it went on and on and on and Broadway, one play after another, finally with the seventeen seventy six and from then on out here. Although I didn't want to come out here, that was a big moment in our life because I didn't want to come out here, but I finally did, and he got me working. Well, I've skipped two children because that was my favorite time. But anyway, he I don't know. Bill is kind of remarkable and when he's been able to make a great deal of money and he's always wanted to make a living, never wanted to be a star. I don't think either one of us. We just want to work, make money. And it's been roughs at times. That was a rough time. I remember that moment in that restaurant going to that play, and I don't remember why he was angry with me. I don't think I had done anything, but he just he just walked out. You don't even remember it. He has no memory of it at all.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: Is there a point at which you can actually look back at some of those tough times, in those tough years with the perspective you have now and you can laugh about it. It seems so serious and it's so important in the moment, But with perspective, does it seem almost like silly?
00:16:42
Speaker 5: In moments?
00:16:43
Speaker 2: What we fight over, what we're fighting for?
00:16:47
Speaker 3: No, don't go good, gole ahead.
00:16:49
Speaker 4: That's a zoo story. Kind of put me on the map in New York because it's won a lot of attention and everybody came to say awards and I am. I was very happy about us. That's all I can say.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: You mentioned rough times, but do you all remember a time where you got close to the relationship actually ending?
00:17:23
Speaker 3: As I said, that was the worst time. When he finished seventeen seventy six and he said, I don't want to do theater. He was offered two big plays Chicago and another play and with wonderful actresses, and he said, no, I want to go to California. I don't want to go to California. And he said, yes, I want to go and live in California like a normal person. Well, it was the best thing he had ever decided, but I didn't think so until later. We had two children and he wanted to raise them in California, and that was another thing we had. We had lost a child. We didn't get pregnant and for a long time, and then Barna got pregnant and then the baby didn't survive the birth. And we adopted two wonderful, wonderful boys, and they have been a joy for me. I think if I think the boys really cemented our marriage, I really do, because we both just subtort them and we both loved having them. And he wanted to come to California because he wanted to be a dad in California. He wanted the boys. He wanted to work in television and movies and not have to go to the theater every night. He just didn't want to do it anymore, and I was resisting. I was so proud of him, and I thought, how can you throw it away? Throw away to the theater after you work so hard.
00:19:06
Speaker 4: People don't realize how eight or week is difficult. Yeah, but it is. And I was in it for a long time.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: So two years plus.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, two years plus.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: You know how hard that is to do a show eight times a week, the same show and keep it fresh and good. And he did. He's amazing on the stage. He can do it, keep it fresh, for two years. I couldn't do that.
00:19:36
Speaker 2: I have marveled at when you go see one show on Broadway and think these actors are giving it there all each night, every night, doing the same thing. I'm sure you mix it up a little bit, but yes, that's not lost at least on us going to see Broadway as often as we do. My hat is off. Our hats are off to anyone who can do that so well each and every night and make each audience feel special because they're seeing it for the first time, even if you're reliving it for the umpteenth time. But you make a good point, Bonnie. You talk about how you didn't want to move to California, and so much of relationships as we're asking folks who have made it through the tough times, how much is compromise and sacrifice a part of making a relationship not just last but succeed.
00:20:29
Speaker 3: Oh a lot. I mean, what you have you have in seventy five years, you can imagine. I mean you have a lot to it's really calm now, of course when you're very old, but you have a lot to go through and you got to get through it, and sometimes things are what you want it to be, But you know what you can always say, But there is a more important There's a more important here that is more important than anything we ever do, and that's the longevity of it, being the parents of our children that I think is so important. I think people give up too soon. I think people have to be more forgiving with each other and and they'll find themselves if they're meant to, they will find themselves. If it can work, it will. If somebody drinks too much or takes dope or something non then that's impossible. But you know, those things are impossible. But you can work things out most of the time, unless it's those very serious things. I call those the serious things. Yes, you can work things out.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Another question we've asked the couples the idea of going to bed angry. Did you all try to avoid going to bed angry throughout your marriage?
00:22:08
Speaker 4: I don't remember doing anything.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: He has no memory. No, But there have been times when we have gone to bed silently, ah, you know, silently but not fighting, but just silently. When there have been times that were tough, we were still there and you get up the next morning and start all over, and it's okay. But no, I never I don't think I recently, oh, yes, recently, we were going to be I was mad at him for some reason. I can't remember what it was, even because I'm rarely mad at him, but I can get annoyed as I and I said, oh c and he said, I have never heard you say that before, and it is not becoming. And that was just like a month ago before the first time I ever said.
00:23:20
Speaker 2: What did you say? In response to that?
00:23:22
Speaker 3: I didn't know why I said it. I mean, I was like, I don't talk like that. I mean, not to him, my wife. You don't talk like that to Bill, but I have. I have occasionally been angry doing something, oh you know, that sort of thing, but not at somebody. I don't do that. And I thought, wow, you know you changed over the years. That's one of the biggest things that happens in a relationship is that people change. If they change for the better, it's good. And then health changes a little bit, and you change a little and you change, and if the are bad, then it breaks it up.
00:24:04
Speaker 1: Wait, money, seventy five years together and that was the first time you said, f you, what happened?
00:24:14
Speaker 3: It was stupid. It was a little thing. I was annoying. He was didn't hear what I said or something, and it was just I just got annoying. That's what I Oh you, Bonnie.
00:24:28
Speaker 2: Do you all at this point do you all go on dates? Do you all have date night? Do you all prioritize your relationship or do you just live your lives. I'm curious that this stage in your relationship do you focus on creating special moments together?
00:24:48
Speaker 4: Well?
00:24:48
Speaker 3: I do remember one thing. Do you remember when you were doing seventeen seventy six and we had two kids, and we could hardly see each other because he he worked all the time and and you know, spend a little time with the kids, but not a lot. So I would book the what is the big hotel in New York, the Park, the big hotel, Laza. I would book a room at the Plaza for the weekend, and I would go. He would on Saturday, he would go off to the theater to do his two performances, and so he would go and do the afternoon. Might I might go book the show, I might go see the show, watch the show or not. I might go shopping down Fifth Avenue, which was a treat, and I might do there might be a movie there, that little foreign movie place while he was performing, and then when he wasn't performing, he'd come over to the hotel and we go to bed. I mean you know, I mean he would just come over and we spent the day in bed, or you know, the sunday and you are going to our favorite place or something. You know, Yeah, completely away from the kids and everything. It was a kind of a sex date.
00:26:16
Speaker 5: Okay, sex Bill.
00:26:19
Speaker 1: How important has sex been in you all's relationship? You've brought it up a few times, none of you. She's been talking about it.
00:26:37
Speaker 3: It was the reason that we got married, not the reason that we've stayed married.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: You go, I love that. What what?
00:26:45
Speaker 3: How?
00:26:46
Speaker 2: How would you describe? What is the reason why divorce rates are what they are? What would you say is the reason why the two of you stayed together and got through those tough times? What is it about your relationship that made it work?
00:27:02
Speaker 3: And last? Even though we never said it, we love each other and we want to help each other. We want to be partnered and both of us, so that's it. Even though we don't you don't speak poetry or anything, we we love Shakespeare. Those poems are wonderful.
00:27:26
Speaker 2: What did you? I know you said you fought and you thought, did you? What did you learn along the way about yourself? I know a lot of times when you fight and you have issues and problems, you grow and people talk about how they evolve, and you've even said you've changed throughout your relationship, so you end up being different people throughout your relationship. Were there lessons that you learned after getting through tough times some of the fights you had together? What did you learn about yourself and about each other?
00:27:57
Speaker 3: What have we learned? I guess I just I think we both feel successful. We both feel successful, and we both have because of the boys. We have learned to really love. That's when you really love your children. It's nothing like it. And we both share the same thing with them. So we've been very lucky.
00:28:29
Speaker 4: Our boys are really tremendous people, they really are, both of them. Ones in New York. We don't see enough of them, but the one here is a tremendous help for us.
00:28:47
Speaker 3: He is very.
00:28:50
Speaker 4: Aware and giving and sharing his time with us. And I think it's very unusual.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's very unusual. I never was that one with my parents.
00:29:18
Speaker 2: What have your I'm curious have you imparted any relationship wisdom to your sons. Have they looked at you and said, wow, I want to have a relationship like mom and dad. What advice have you given them or have they told you they've learned from watching the two of you and your relationship together.
00:29:41
Speaker 3: We wouldn't know what they've learned because they one of the boys that we adopted was Jewish, or you know, it is Jewish, and he's gone in a slightly different way, not that he's not a really religious guy or anything, but he's Jewish. So they don't celebrate Christmas, you know, they have honqu and things like that. And our other son, who is so marvelous here, has had a bad not a bad marriage, but a marriage that didn't didn't go on, you know, And then he married later another wonderful lady and he seems to be really happy now. So that makes us very happy. Those things matter in your life so much, so much. And we have four grandchildren and they're all terrific. They're all very different, and they're all terrific, and they join us occasionally and do stuff with us. And you know, right now they're struggling and the economy so that's hard for them, but they're okay, they're fine. They're fine, and.
00:31:04
Speaker 5: We like that.
00:31:06
Speaker 1: You said earlier that you feel successful. Yeah, and you spoke earlier a lot about career. But now I see you both light up when you talk about family. So when you said successful, how much of that were you talking about family and personal versus career?
00:31:26
Speaker 3: All of the things, all the things, really, really, all the things, everything we do. We've been very lucky and it has helped. For instance, when we came out to California and I had been taking care of kids and I loved it. I didn't want to leave New York. I want to stay there and have them go to the schools and do all that. I had sort of stopped acting because I went on the road a couple of times. I couldn't stand it. I could not stand it. Had somebody given me this lead role in a movie and I've had to go away for three months or something like that, I suppose I would have done it, and I would have been miserable.
00:32:11
Speaker 4: It would have.
00:32:12
Speaker 3: Been such a mistake because you got to be there with the kids. You've got to be there with the little ones, you know, as they grow up and it's such a joy, and it's such a feeling of doing something important. As much as I love acting as much and I dearly love it, it's not important, not like a relationship.
00:32:37
Speaker 4: It isn't.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: That's very cool to hear because I think that's something that a lot of people don't recognize until it's too late. You recognized it in the moment, and that's beautiful when it comes to you. Bonnie and Bill, would you say that your friends that your best friends? How much has friendship played a role in your romance.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: When we were younger, yes, we had a lot of wonderful friends, but when we became more of a family, it changed. But we have had We had wonderful friends in New York. We had like a balanchine dancer, a musician in the opera, or what do you call it, a news guy, you know, travelers. We had wonderful friends there in New York who are still our friends.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: And have you all been able to have a friendship with one another? Do you consider each other? Bonnie? Do you consider Bill your best friend? And vice versa.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: He's the person's there if you need him. You know, he always came to help me acting. He would come and help me if I was in trouble, and sometimes help him. We're each other's best critic. I will say that we don't lie. You know, we don't lie, and and that's been good because then you can trust somebody if they don't lie. If somebody lies to you, then you can't trust them. But if you know it's it's it's better to say no, you just weren't there. You just weren't. It was like you didn't want to be on the stage that helps you so much.
00:34:26
Speaker 2: Exactly what you all would critique each other's work, Oh yes, oh yes all the time.
00:34:32
Speaker 3: Yes, or somebody a director can sometimes say something that's very harmful, not hurtful, but harmful to your work. And when that would happen, the other person was always there to say what was really going on?
00:34:49
Speaker 1: No?
00:34:49
Speaker 3: And we we did a We put that scene together in a Thousand Clowns in our apartment, with the scene where Sandy hid in the clouse. No, you hit in the closet or was it Sandy who was in the closet. I can't remember, but it was a funny, funny scene and we kind of worked on that. So we would work on things if we had to when we did say't elsewhere, we didn't ever rehearse. We didn't have to.
00:35:19
Speaker 1: Who was the tougher critic him?
00:35:25
Speaker 3: I'm much Yeah. No, he's very tough. And he doesn't like to go to the theater. He doesn't like to even go to a movie anymore. He used to go to the movies and love him. But the theater, he said, Oh, I sit there, and what is it when you go to the theater that you don't like?
00:35:42
Speaker 4: Well, I look at it a different way than the audience would. I look at it as somebody who has been up there and knows what they're going through. So it's a kind of a critical thing, and it takes away the fact that I'm not enjoying it. I let's see, I'm being critical or upset that they're doing something that they probably shouldn't do.
00:36:18
Speaker 3: When Bill gets a script, he looks at it for all the wrong things. He says, that's no good, that's no good, there's no three acts. Most actors we look at it from the point of that's a nice part. Oh yeah, ok, yeah, I can do that, and we don't judge the whole thing as much. Most of us, not all the smart ones, are like Bill, and it makes such a difference because then you're not disappointed. I mean, he knows going in what the problems are, and most of us don't because we're so involved in our part. You know, I'm doing the part and everything.
00:37:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very that's very sweet to hear your admiration of his intellect and his ability to be critical for all the right reasons. That's actually really beautiful. I'm curious. Obviously, you guys were both so busy with your careers and with your sons. Now that all of that has gone away and it's just the two of you. I know your other son is still there often, but how do you two, how is your relationship today now when it's just the two of you, the noise is gone, that the showbiz isn't necessarily center stage now it's the two of you. How would you describe your life together now after all these years?
00:37:45
Speaker 3: Very peaceful. He needs me. I have to be here all the time. He doesn't like me to go away. He doesn't. It's like, you know, so I'm kind of housebound sometimes more than I want to be, but I get out, but he likes me to be you know, or close, doesn't like me to go away for a day. No, he doesn't, and that's fine because I'm fine with him. I was going to say something, and oh, I know what I was going to say. I'm going to put in a plug. We have a online store and it's called Bill and Bonnie Daniels dot com. And here's a card from it, and my son, the son in New York, he kind of runs it, and he said he's going to put up a sale February, you know, like Valentine's Day kind of thing, sale of all the pictures that are the two of us together from the past and I'm now, and people can get him on a sale, a big sale. So I promised him. I plug that.
00:39:01
Speaker 5: That is amazing.
00:39:03
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: That is so sweet. So what is an What is a day like for the two of you at home? You say you're with Bill most days all what's the day like?
00:39:13
Speaker 3: I usually get up first. I'm up earlier, and I puts around and do a few things that I have to do. Bill gets up a little later. He makes his own breakfast. I never learned to make coffee because I don't drink coffee. So he gets up, he makes his own breakfast. He makes well. He makes coffee, of course, he loves grapefruit in the morning, and he will have English muffins. Or if we go out to Arts Delhi, he loves to go out for breakfast. That's his big thing, to go out for breakfast. And there he'll have a big breakfast. And then he reaches the New York Times. Time it comes to the door, he picks up the paper. He sits in the chair in the living room and he reads the New York Times for a couple of hours. Then the best paper in the world. And then we'll, uh, we don't exactly have lunch. We don't really have lunch, but you know, we'll eat a little bit. But he about three o'clock, he likes to Oh, we work out. We have a wonderful lady who works us out twice a week. And they're very you know, strenuous. It's good, it's very good for us. Hep us he's ninety, gonna be ninety nine, and he's strongly taking me. His heart is so strong. It's wonderful. He's so healthy. And and then he will start he'll watch he likes to watch MSNBC. He still will watch Seinfeld loves Seinfeld. He watches those. And I like movies, so I'll go and computer and watch Netflix movie because they take me out of it. You know, I'm fine with that. Then we had an early dinner. We have a woman who brings us food. Bill used to be a great cook. He was really a good cook. Our son here is even better than do and he but that's how he started. And he's wonderful and we but but Bill doesn't cook anymore. But we have a lady who brings in food, and I can put it together, do you know what I mean? But I don't And I never did cook a lot. I cooked for the kids when I was little, when they were little, I did And I don't know. And then we go to bed about eight thirty nine o'clock. Sat a lot easy enough. We do conventions. We still like to make money. And so if we can go to a convention and make a a bunch of money and see all the peace people and make them happy, of course, but we'd like to make the money. We do that.
00:42:06
Speaker 2: Some things never change. It's always good to make a little money.
00:42:08
Speaker 3: I hear you, especially in this time. Never know what's going to happen.
00:42:15
Speaker 1: Okay, last thing, I'm sure you get this question all the time, but we'll ask it here. When people come up and they hear you've been married this long, they want to know what's the secret? How do you make it last? So what do you tell them?
00:42:33
Speaker 3: Lack of imagination?
00:42:36
Speaker 5: That's he that's good.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: I guess it's it's kind of I guess we don't know it, but it's probably because we want to be together. We always want to be together. I guess you call that love.
00:42:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess you call that love, love and like and all of the love. But yeah, that's like, if you have a desire, you can make it up, make it work.
00:43:06
Speaker 3: We feel safe with each other, you know, we feel very safe with each other, and we're very happy to be together all day every day.
00:43:16
Speaker 2: I love that. And what a gift. What a gift to your sons, and what a gift to us for sharing your love story because it is beautiful and and it's something to be proud of. Talk about success marriage where you both can sit next to each other with smiles on your face and talk about the good times and the bad times. And Bill there is ninety nine years old, and y'all are still sitting next to each other with smiles. That is success. So congratulations. We aspire more like the two of you in every way. Thank you so I love Bill and Bonnie. We belong together. Thank you so much for being here and being with us on this podcast. We have learned so much from you and I just appreciate you sharing your love story with us.
00:44:04
Speaker 3: Thank you. You've been very sweet.
00:44:07
Speaker 5: Say your bell
00:44:10
Speaker 3: Bye guys, Bye bye