March 18, 2021 • 44 mins
Ali gets personal with actress, producer, author, activist and feminist Marlo Thomas about her 40-year marriage to TV talk show host Phil Donahue. It was a marriage she wasn’t looking for and never saw coming, but as Marlo says, “He just became essential and I couldn’t live without him.” Well, it’s one thing to find your irreplaceable person, but how do you defy the odds through the ups and downs? Having interviewed 40 celebrated couples for their book “What Makes a Marriage Last” – Marlo is peeling back the curtain to share the secrets to a partnership that works. // Marlo and Phil are also co-hosts of the podcast “Double Date.” //
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi am Alli
Wentworth And you're listening to Go ask Ali? Where this
half of the season, I'm asking how do you grow
a healthy relationship? In this episode, we're chatting all about
that insane lifelong commitment many people make to one person marriage.
(00:30):
And today I'm talking to an outstanding guest who has
been married to the same person for several decades. How
have they done it? My guest is Marlo Thomas, somebody
I admire so much and love. Marlo Thomas is an actress, producer, author,
and social activists, best known for starring on the sitcom
(00:51):
That Girl and her children's franchise Free to Be You
and Me, which I grew up on. She's received four Emmy's,
a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award for her work
in television, and she's been inducted into the Broadcasting and
Cable Hall of Fame. Thomas serves as national outreach director
for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which was founded by
(01:11):
her father, Danny Thomas in nineteen sixty two. In night,
Marlo Thomas married talk show host Phil Donahue and with that,
I'm here to pick her brain. Thank you for joining
me and go ask Alli Marlowe, Hi, Ali, are you
gonna ask me? Am I going to ask you? We're
(01:31):
going to ask together. Okay, Okay, I'm ready. It's gonna
be a marriage of minds on this podcast. So you
guys have been married for forty years, very commendable. And
I have been married to George for twenty years. And
I do think that there is something very similar to
my marriage and your marriage in that you and Phil
(01:53):
are very different people, and George and I are very
different people. And I'm sure when you first got married,
everybody said, well, is not gonna last, because I know
when I got married to George and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral,
people were in the back road making bets on how
long it was last, and it was like six months
was the winning number. But look at us, right, Yeah,
(02:14):
Well they talked about us like, oh, she's a Hollywood
kid and he's a Cleveland guy, and that, you know,
that really doesn't have anything to do with it anyway.
My parents, my parents were from the Midwest. My dad
was from Toledo, Ohio, like one exit from Cleveland, so
I was raised in that kind of middle class. You know,
(02:34):
you work hard, and you go to Catholic Church and
you know all the stuff that he did. I went
to Catholic school. He went to Catholic School. Um, so
a lot of our upbringing was the same. But I
think what attracted us, you know, right away, was our
sexual attraction, of course, but then just the fact that
we we thought about things in the same way. You know,
(02:56):
we were worried about the same things, and we we
were so much alike in our love of work. You
know me, let me ask you, I'm gonna we're going
back to sexy. Don't go so fast. Because you went
on Phil's show that's when you first met him, right right,
And I was set up on a date with George,
But I knew who he was, just like you knew
(03:16):
who Phil Donahue was. And so when you went to
go do the show, did you think you were going
to be sexually attracted to him? No? No, no, no no.
In fact, I didn't even want to do the show.
It was at nine o'clock in the morning and it
was one guest for one hour, and I was on
a tour for a movie, and I said to my
press agent. I'm just not that interesting at nine am
(03:37):
for a whole hour. The only person I don't want
to do it because you have to do it. He's
the biggest thing in the Midwest. You have to do it.
Because he wasn't in l A at the time. So
I said, okay, okay. So I went. And when he
walked in the room, I swear to god, I thought,
oh my god, those blue eyes at white here. I mean,
I just thought were so right away but right again.
(03:59):
And then we went on the stage on his show
and we just flirted, and I mean it was really
I mean it was embarrassing. You know if you saw it.
They showed it to me later and they send us
a tape of it, and I just said, oh my god.
I mean, I was talking about feminism and about being
a strong woman, about never being married, about what I
(04:20):
wanted out of life and all the stuff. And while
I'm saying all that, I'm going, oh, feel You're hilarious,
just a total moron. I mean, I just looked particulous.
And we went out the next night and we became lovers.
That was it. We just went went for it. It's amazing, surprising,
and that I'm yeah, I'm not saying I'm not that
(04:42):
kind of girl. It just wasn't the way I did things. Ever,
I waited a while. I wanted to be sure. I
wanted to see, you know, if I could trust him emotionally.
I mean, I had a whole lot of laws and
rules about these people colde men. I was very careful,
but I wasn't careful at all with Phil. He asked
you out. Well, I left Chicago and I had gone
(05:04):
to Denver for the next part of the tour, and
he called me in Denver and he said I'd love
to see you. And I said, well, I'm in Denver.
Is Denver very far from Chicago? And he goes, oh, no,
I'll come to Denver. I said great. So he came
to Denver and we had to dinner, and then we
(05:25):
took a walk and it was raining, and the studio
had a limousine from me, but Phil, you know Mr Cleveland,
he will not get in a lima. We had to walk.
So we go. We're walking and it's raining and he
gave me his coat and he's stopped and wet. Anyway,
we get back to the hotel and we became lovers
and The next morning, he raced to get back to
(05:45):
Chicago to do his show at nine am, and he
had lost his voice because he had been walking in
the rain, I guess, and poweling. Yeah, well that too.
I had to put a sock in his mouth. But
but at that, you know, that was the first show
that he ever did that they couldn't go on. He
never had missed a show in his life. The second
(06:06):
time he missed the show, we were in New York
and he spent the night and the weekend, and then
Sunday night, he didn't want to go back, so he said,
I'll take the early plane in the morning. Okay, So
he spent another night and the plane was late. It
was whatever the hell happened, and he missed the show.
And his producer, Pat McMillan, who's fabulous, she came into
(06:29):
the office and she sent Phil, this woman is just
not good for you. This isn't gonna work. And he said,
I promised it will never happen again. So that was
two shows in his entire twenty nine years, because of you,
because of me. So anybody knows you can't rely on
flying to Chicago. Flights are always canceled. He just that
(06:52):
was the strength of wanting to be with you. Oh yeah,
might wanted to be with him. Yeah, yeah, I mean
I didn't discourage it. I said, what a good idea.
So we had an extra night, you know. And when
you're really crazy about somebody and you only have a weekend,
it's not enough, you know. He he lands on Friday
and he leaves on Sunday. I mean, it's nothing. It's
(07:14):
so it's so interesting, Marla, because you know, George was
raised in Cleveland too, and when I met him, he
was living in New York and I was living in
l A. And it was the same thing. We had
a long distance relationship for six months. But I do
remember a few times missing important engagements because I wanted
(07:35):
to be with them and that was all that mattered
to me at the timesolutely. Yeah. And I also remember
going to his bachelor pad for the first time. What
was that like when you first went to Phil's apartment?
But he had kids, so it was a very very
different world you walked into. Well, yeah, and it was.
It was terrible, really, I mean in terms of privacy.
(07:56):
Four boys. Yeah, you know, he was living, you know,
like a dad. They had they were completely trying to
organize themselves. It was very sweet, and they all had
their names written on their underwear. And I had never
I'd never been with a man who had dad written
on his un If you don't, if you don't think
(08:19):
that stopped, you're just a bit oh wow. See I
had the opposite when I when I was dating George,
he had this bachelor pad in New York that was
like you you you know, clapped your hands and started
would start playing in the fire with light and you
know it was I walked right into the web. But
you famously did not want to get married. You were
(08:42):
a feminist. You saw no reason for it. And I
actually liked to joke that I have a box of
engagement rings because I was always at the runaway bride.
Really yeah, And yet six months into a long distance
relationship with George he proposed, actually it was two months
he proposed, and which was a huge leap of faith.
(09:04):
But but I kind of knew. I just knew. And
I'm curious, what changed your mind? Why why Mary fell? Well,
first of all, we didn't get married for three years.
He proposed to me after about six months, and I said,
oh no, yeah, I really am crazy for you, but
I don't ever want to be married. So he backed
(09:27):
off and we continued this very exciting, you know, three
day weekend, two day weekend thing, and he just became
he became essential. I mean, that was simply it. I
just I could not be without him. And we broke
up once for three months, obviously before we were married,
(09:47):
because it was so I was living in l a.
And he was living in Chicago, so that four hour
trip was really rough. And at one point we both
said to each other, after about a year and a half,
maybe that this was just hot to handle in every way.
He's got four kids, he's on the air every day.
I was making I made about a dozen television movies
that I've produced and started at that time. So I
(10:09):
was working like a maniac and it just wasn't working.
And we said, you know what, it's great, I'm crazy
for you, but it's just it's it's too disruptive. He said,
I can't leave my kids every weekend, and I said,
I can't, like not be there for the rehearsal or
the edit or the music scoring. So we broke up
for three months, and it was the best thing to
(10:31):
have done, because that's when I knew I can't, I
can't live without him, and he did too. I take it. Yeah,
he was skiing with his sons. He'd taken his four
boys skiing. He was a really and still is. But
he was a really good dad and he had, you know,
custody of his kids. His his ex wife had their daughter,
and he had the four boys. And so they were
(10:53):
skiing somewhere and he called me at three in the morning.
Thankfully I was by myself, and I picked up the
phone and he said, I I never thought anybody could
be this irreplaceable m hm. And I started crying and
he started crying, and that that was it. He felt
what I felt. Yes, it's terrible, it's a pain in
(11:15):
the ascid all this traveling and it just completely disrupts
our lives. But this is what we got. So we
did it. And he said to me, I can't leave
Chicago until I've got my boys out of high school,
which was like another four years. And so then we
bought an apartment and this apartment, actually we created this apartment.
So we've been here forty years. Thirty five years. We
(11:38):
lived in another place and then we waited and then
he moved the whole show here, the whole staff, everybody,
which is incredible. We put our lives together. Well, it's
it's what we had to do. I mean, when you
fall in love, when you really fall in love as
you have, I mean, I know what you and George
have and what we have. If you really fall in love,
(11:58):
there is nobody else. It's hard to leave, but there's
nobody else on the planet to this day that I
want to be with. And you gotta make it work.
So you make it work. I used to I used
to joke to George because I was living in l A.
And obviously I knew his career was was essential and
that I would have to move to New York. But
at one point I said, well, you know, I just
(12:20):
bought my first house and I'm writing screenplays and I'm
doing all this stuff. I said, why don't you leave
ABC News as the political correspondent and do access Hollywood
so we can both live and he hung up the phone.
I said that to Phil, I said to him, why
can't you live in l A. I mean, this place
(12:40):
is loaded with interesting people, And he said, I don't
want it interview those people. You know, I'm not interested
in those people. He said, I can live in New
York or Washington. There are two places that I could live.
So we moved to New York and made a life here. Yeah.
I mean, do you believe in the concept of one
per person? There's that one person out there for you.
(13:03):
I didn't used to think that at all. In fact,
when I was single, I mean, there seemed to be
all kinds of men that looked exciting and interesting. You know,
I had a great time. Yeah. No, because comes a
time when I think, you do meet this person and
that's the one you want. And I have never been
tempted by another man. I mean, not that they're tempting me,
(13:24):
but I'm saying I've never looked at another man I said,
oh boy, I wish I could be with him. I've
never felt that I'm completely satisfied. Yeah, I've never felt
cut either. But I wonder sometimes. I wonder if sometimes
maybe because I had experiences before I met George. You know,
I had the French director, and I went out with
(13:45):
the British actor and this and that, so I know
what that is. So when I'm at a restaurant and
I see some you know, SIMI and looking guy, I
know what that is. I've been there. I don't you know,
there's no fantasy that goes along with it. Yeah, well,
I think that that's the good part about getting married,
you know, not at two. You know, when I think
(14:05):
of who I went out with when I was twenty
two or twenty six or thirty one, even it was like, seriously,
you know, but I think you need some time. You know.
They say men need to sew their oaths. What's to women?
I agree, you know, I agree. You need to experience
it and then, and that's how you can narrow it
down and say, Okay, yeah you don't you gotta test
drive a bunch of cars before you buy, but you do,
(14:29):
especially with a lifetime warranty exactly, which reminds me we're
due for a tune up. There's a lot more to
come after this short break. Welcome back with more go
(14:53):
ask Alli. I actually have a friend who is going
through a horrific divorce, and she said, you know what,
don't ever marry anyone you wouldn't want a divorce. Which
it's interesting when you think about it, like if if
God forbid George and I got divorced, he would be
a kind person, you know, what I mean. He wouldn't
(15:15):
be a monster, he would be fair. And I thought
that was an interesting way of twisting the idea of marriage.
That's why we didn't do a prenup. You know, our
business managers both were insistent that we do a prenup,
and Phil and I talked about it, and we said,
us like betting against ourselves. Yeah, we're going into this forever,
God forbid, something happens. I trust that you'll be nice,
(15:39):
and I trusted you'll be nice, And so we didn't
and I'm glad we didn't. Again, we didn't have an
escape clause. I think that's important to say. I'm putting
all my chips on this. Yeah, we didn't sign a
prenup because neither of us really had any money to
prenup um. So George and I were so lucky to
be part of book What Makes a Marriage Last, which
(16:02):
is a wonderful collection of inspiring and cannon conversations between
you and Phil and other married couples. Uh. It's just
a beautiful and helpful read because each couple has their
own story and their own obstacles they've overcome, and their
own way of quote unquote doing it. And I want
to talk about a few of those sort of universal
challenges that come up in a marriage, to hear your
(16:23):
perspective and what you've learned in the process of writing
this book and what makes a marriage last. So the
first one is infidelity, because you know, that's a huge
marriage breaker, and it's it's and it's something that I've
known people that were able to get through it, and
I've known people that haven't. And did you talk to
(16:44):
people who were able to weather that storm where somebody
was unfaithful and they kept they kept the marriage going.
The only person that admitted to it was Jesse Jackson,
and he had a child out of marriage. And she's
a firecracker, that Jackie Jackson. And she said, and she
calls him reverend, as I call him reverend to remind
(17:06):
him of who he should be. But she said, she says,
I have five children, the reverend has six. Um and
she said something so interesting, she said that this marriage
is a test of my character. I said, forever sickness
and health, and Richard poor and bad, good and bad,
and and that's why I'm here and we have our marriage.
(17:27):
And I'd say to women, stay away from him. He
is already taken, so she came to Grips with it
and I said, did you throw him out? She said,
of course, I threw him out, but then he's not
going anywhere. He came back, so they got through it.
I don't know. I know Phil wouldn't get through it
no way. In fact, we were talking about this with
Kelly Rippa and Mark and Suelos because he was very jealous.
(17:51):
And Phil was very jealous when we first started going
together and I did a movie with Chris Christofferson and
he was so sexy. I mean really, I had to
remind myself literally that I was married, because we made
out all day in this particular love scene. And Phil
was very jealous of him. And he came to the
hotel where I was staying in the middle of the night,
(18:12):
filled in and I opened the door, and the minute
I saw him, I said, oh, come on. So I said,
come in, come and look and see what you can find.
And he said, oh, no, I'll just missed you. I said, oh,
I know you did, dear, come in. It was like
four in the morning and I had to be up
in a half hour. And Kelly Ripper said to him,
what would you have done Bill if Christopher Safferson had
(18:34):
been there. He said, I would have I would have
turned around and left, and I said, that's right. She said, well,
my husband, that would have been police tape. I said,
I know, but he would have been so brokenhearted and
so disappointed. And I think that would have been my
reaction to I don't think I could come back from Matt. Yeah.
I've talked about it with George too, because you know,
(18:57):
I love to put scenarios in front of him, whether
he likes it or not. And I used to say, okay,
so you you come home from work unexpectedly I'm in
bed with somebody else. And George always says, you know,
I think I would quietly walk out heartbroken and that
would be that like I I you know, I could
(19:19):
not bounce back from it. Yeah, I said, well, I'd
have a full, jealous, dramatic rage and I throw things
out the window onto the street, and I, you know,
write a book and then have a movie made about it.
But I wouldn't have been able to I don't think
i'd be able to weather that. I really don't. It'd
never be the same. Trust is Trust is hard, and
(19:41):
you know, my hats off to couples that are able
to do it. Um addiction. Yeah, there's a lot of
addiction in the book. Well, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Guest,
they've been married thirty eight years, forty seven years. Uh,
she was addicted to all kinds of prescription medicine and stuff.
And he didn't even about it. And then he started
(20:02):
to notice it, and but they had to weather that.
I mean, it's a big thing for somebody to go
into the step program and all that. But he didn't
even notice it at first. It's interesting. He just said
that he he thought she was drinking a little bit
too much, and he mentioned it once or twice, but
he didn't know it was also connected to pills. And
(20:24):
she said, I've never been a better actress. She said,
addicts are really good actors, you know. She said, you
just you really learned how to hide it and where
to get it from. And you know, they go to
people's houses and she she'd go through their medicine cabinets.
She was a real addict, and and she's so gifted
and smart and a writer and a good actress and
(20:45):
all these things. Did you did you talk to people
that were unable to jump that hurdle. Did they talk
about previous marriages or things that didn't work out before
they married that long term person? No, not because of addiction.
The people that had ted dayson was married. This is
his third marriage to Mary Steve Bergin, and it's been there.
It's thirtieth year. It's a great marriage. They're they're adorable.
(21:08):
But I said to him, how did you have the
guts to go on to a third marriage. I mean
I would have thought, okay, I I don't know how
to do this. He said, well, I realized that I
had to stop being a liar. I just thought that
was so startling. And I said, well, what did you
lie about? He said? I lied about everything. Uh, he said,
I cheated, you know, I was unfaithful all the time.
(21:30):
But I mostly lied about who I was. He said,
because I had this vision that a man with a
woman has to be strong and be the white knight
and have all the answers and be the one that
you know, can carry the burden and all that. So
I pretended always that that's who I was, But I wasn't.
(21:52):
I was crumbling inside. I was a mess inside, he said.
I was a hot mess most of my life. I
think that would be true for a lot of people, because,
you know, I think back on the relationship I had
before I met George, and I was completely acting. I
wanted to be whatever he wanted me to be, and
(22:12):
so if he wanted me to be, you know, sexy
actress girl who could also make a baked chicken, you know,
I I tried to be whatever he wanted me to
because I didn't want him to leave. And I remember
when I met George, I made a very conscious decision
that I was not going to play games. You know,
I was not gonna I was staying with a friend
(22:33):
in New York when we had our first date, and
he asked me out for another date. And the friend
that I was staying with was whispering behind me when
he called and said, you know, I'd love to take
you out again. And she says, tell him you're busy,
and I was like, no, go away, and she said
tell him that you have a date with Prince Albert
of Monico. Oh my god, get out of here. And
I decided I was not going to play any games.
(22:56):
I was not going to pretend to be anybody. I
wasn't because you know, I really liked him, and it
wasn't going to be a thing if he didn't genuinely
like who I was, And it made all the difference
in the world. I'm sure I did. No, it was
I'm glad I did. I mean, you know now, one
of the things that I like to talk to my
girlfriends about, some of which are in your book, Mauritika
(23:18):
Hargety and I talk a lot about how couples fight,
and George and I certainly have come a long long
way from when we were first married because I was
a mean fighter and George was a shutdown fighter, so
I would scream and yelled, he would get very quiet. Now,
after twenty years, we've learned to immediately confront the issue
(23:44):
and then deal with it in a loving way, because nothing,
nothing good comes from blaming. And and now we we
each have each other's handbook, like we know, we understand
each other, we know what this is. But you must
have talked to a lot of couples about fighting right
and how they learned about themselves through fighting right, Well,
(24:06):
you do. I mean with with me and Phil, we're
kind of like you and George. Phil was the you
clam up and I would chase him. I would chase
him to get him to hear what I had to say,
because he didn't want to hear it. The minute he
knew it was a fight, he'd screaming, hell, whatever, and
then he disappeared, and I would scream, mihale and follow
him until I could get something to happen, some some resolution.
(24:29):
We finally came to a place where we could. You know,
well now we rarely fight, but we came to a
place where he would listen and I and I realized
an interesting thing. Kelly Rippa said this. She said she
realized that she would fix her face so that no
matter what Mark said, she would not change the expression
(24:52):
on her face, so that she could get him to
tell her what was bothering him without him thinking she
was judging her. And I thought that was so great,
because I think I kind of did that too. Instead
of reacting, I learned to let him get it out,
let him say what it is, and don't defend yourself
on everything. Let him say it, and then when he
(25:14):
got all out, he was better. But I because I
would fight the minit he set something I said. I
did not say that that you misunderstood that, you know,
whatever the hell it was, he just needs to get
it out. But I One of the things that James
Carville said that we now use as one of our
mantras is that when they're in the middle, he and
his wife Mary matt Lan, when when they're in the
(25:36):
middle of one of those circular arguments that we all have,
he says, let's just kick this can down the road,
he said, And I think every good marriage has like
a whole alley full of cans. And it's true. And
when Phil and I get into one of those where
you're going around and around, he did say one day,
let's kick this can down the road. And we both
started laughing, and we thought, it's so true. This is
(25:59):
a this is something that is of no importance. You
said you have no but you said you, you said
you taken no, you said you know, and it just
means nothing. And you can slam moll the door as
you want and not talk for an hour or two.
I can't stay clammed up for too long. I'm not
the kind of person that cannot talk to my husband
for three days. And I know people do that. We can't.
(26:22):
I can't do that. Now we can. We We don't
go to bed angry I mean, we've had a lot
of sleepless nights, but we won't go to bed angry. Right,
We do that too. Did you ask Mary Mattlin and
James Carvill about fighting about politics? Didday early on in
their marriage have to sort of take that off the agenda?
It was interesting, said, politics is something we do for
(26:43):
a living. You know, our life is about We've got kids,
we have family, we have a house, we have cooking,
we do all this stuff that we love. We try
to stay away from politics. That's what's what we do
for a living. Which is smart. Yeah, yeah, I mean
if you can do it, yeah, I mean I don't
(27:03):
I think it. Phil believed in somebody as awful as
we've just been through. I don't know that I could
have handled that, but I think I think I probably
would have killed him. That's why Kelly and Conway and
her husband were so fascinating to the American public as
I don't know how they did. I don't know, but
you know, also Cure Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, they lost
(27:27):
all their money to Bernie made off thirty years of
savings and put it all was made off, and it
was suggested by her father her stepfather, and Kevin didn't
blame her. I mean, they didn't go into that. They
just sat down and said, okay, well let's let's face it.
And they and they got stronger from it. They actually
(27:48):
became closer to it, and they said, and they faced it.
They said, look, we're not money people. That was that
was our own idiocy. You know, we're not money people.
Were actors and they have a terrific marriage. Well, you
know what was fascinating though, when you're asking these questions,
is that because they wanted to do a book to
find out what's the secret sauce of a long marriage,
(28:10):
we didn't come across people who had divorced their spouses,
and they had divorced previous ones. But what we learned
really is that the people who stay married, they still
go through all the crap that everybody goes through, some
worse than others, but they're not looking for the exit sign.
That really is the difference. If you decide that this
(28:31):
is it. You know, Cia Cedric said, there's no plan B,
so no matter what happens, you and I have said, well,
infidelity would be our exit sign. Maybe everybody has one.
But thankfully they didn't come to it. So whether it
was infidelity or losing their money, or or sickness like
Michael J. Fox and Tracy and the third year of
(28:55):
their marriage he got that diagnosis. Third year, I mean,
that is a huge thing. And I I know people.
I know couples who have broken up because one of
them was ill and with the degenerative disease like MS
and they couldn't deal with it. They're partners, they are
(29:15):
life partners, Mike and Tracing, absolutely, and they're very much
in law. And that's that's an interesting couple to bring
up to because I think it was no question Mike's
illness was something that they were going to fight together
and they created the Michael J. Fox Foundation, And it
was it was his drinking after he got the diagnosis.
(29:38):
That's when Tracy said, are you kidding, Like, we're not
doing this. We're not doing this, Like I can handle Parkinson's,
but you know, the drinking is the game changer, so
forget that. And that went on for like a year
and a half until he got ahold of it. Yeah,
you know, because I said to him, were you afraid
that she'd bail out on you? And he said, well,
(29:59):
I was afraid that I would be available, and I'm
one of the things was my drinking and I had
to put that together. But she's she's. I mean, I
I left them in tears. I Phil wasn't with me,
he had the flu, and I kept the date because
they were traveling somewhere. And when I was walking home
because they're just a few blocks up the street, and
(30:21):
I started crying and I thought, I'm crying because being
with them has made me love my husband more. Being
with them has made me realize that this is marriage
and they and they get it and I get it,
and it really it was a very emotional, not because
(30:41):
they weren't. They weren't emotional. They were just natural, normal people.
But he was having trouble, the usual trouble that we see,
and she was not fixing it for him, you know,
she wasn't moving things for him. He was who he
is and that was fine, and she ben't trying to
make it look better. I just was so I thought,
(31:04):
that's what that's what it means to really love somebody
and accept all of them, you know, but that it
just just really touched me. We're gonna take a short
break and we'll be right back welcome back. I wonder
(31:28):
if you think this is true. I speaking of Mike
and Tracy, who are good friends of ours and we
might have been traveling with them when you kept that appointment.
I find that George and I gravitate towards happily married
couples absolutely and are uncomfortable with people that aren't um
And I can tell you I think people that are
(31:50):
in kind of rocky marriages tend to want to be
with people in rocky marriages, you know. But George and
I are completely uneasy and don't feel our authentic selves
if we're not with other people that are kind of
from that marriage tribe. And it's really bad for you too.
I mean Phil has told me that, you know, everybody
(32:13):
will be talking and he'll be talking to this one
guy who's like really putting his wife down. And Phil said,
I feel like I'm supposed to say, yeah, I know,
Marlow is really rough, But he said, I don't know
what to do. He said, I just you know, say
something stupid like oh god, that's rough, you know. But
he said, I like that I'm expected to be one
of the boys to be unhappy. And the other thing
(32:35):
is is that you do wear the energy of an
unhappy couple or an unhappy person. I mean, if you're
with the woman who's unhappy, you're going to leave the
luncheon until Jesus. I'm just down. I'm really down. I'm
I'm carrying her thing with me. Also, unhappy married people
zing each other. And you know me well enough to
know that I'm a bit of a fixer. So like
(32:56):
if a couple is arguing, I would say, Oh, he
didn't mean it like that. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna
make it all work now for them. You know, you're
instant therapist. Yeah, yeah, So it's it's bad for me
in many ways. I'm a Vinski, as they say. I.
I had the experience of when we certainly when we
first moved to New York from d C, that I
(33:17):
was asked to lunch by women I didn't know very
well but that we're you know, graciously inviting me out,
and they would become bitch fests about their husbands, just
oh he's driving me crazy or I can't stand him,
or oh I'm having an affair, and and I just
I couldn't breathe. And I ended up writing a chapter
(33:39):
in one of my books about how I felt. Boy,
I'm so uninteresting. I go to these lunches. I'm not
screwing the tennis pro. I I don't hate my husband.
I have nothing to say. Does anybody want to talk
about Syria? You know, I'm not going to bash my
husband just for the sake of bashing it, which, by
the way, is different from if you and I went
for a walk in Central Park and I said, you know,
(34:02):
I'm I'm having a problem with George. This is what
it is. Can you help me fix it? This was
like real husband bashing, and in a way that I
couldn't stomach at all. Right, Yeah, Now, I've I've been
with women who do that, but also with women who
asked me to lunch and said, you know, my husband
is like really screaming all the time, and what do
(34:22):
you do? And and and sometimes also about you know,
not having enough sex or something, and you say you
want to help, because that's that's that's loving. Now I've
I've now that we're at this age. I've lately I've
been saying coconut, oil a lot and coconut. I'm telling you.
(34:43):
I have friends that are like, oh, I don't know,
and I go just coconut oil and call me in
the morning. You have said that marriage is the cushion
of life, and what do you mean by that? Well,
you know when you get rejected, you know, and who
doesn't when something doesn't go well? You know what? What
brings you down in whatever way, either brings you down emotionally,
(35:05):
whether it brings you down about your own self esteem
and your own worth, whatever happens where somebody hurts you
in some way. And then there's your marriage, and there's
your guy who says, oh, honey, you have this and
you have that. And as you know, I talk a lot,
and I'm the kind of person who might say the
wrong thing at a party to somebody. But if I do,
(35:26):
if I say something and I shouldn't have said it,
I think I hurt somebody's feelings or whatever. I'll come
home and I'll say they said, oh god, I shouldn't
have said that. Why did I say that? Oh my god,
I shouldn't whatever, And Phil will say, oh, come on,
you were the most interesting person at the party. Everybody
was crazy. But he won't let me go there. He
won't let me feel bad and sad, and that is
(35:47):
what I But that's a tiny thing when you lose
your dad, as I did, and I was broken hearted
and it was sudden and it was over like that.
In the middle of the night, I thought I'd lose
my mind and feel was just over me and on me,
and he was he wasn't a cushion. Well that's that's
a good mate. And I love it because I think
(36:09):
George is my cushion as well. But I also wanted
to instill in our marriage that you know, we're both
there for you know, the difficult times, the hard times,
and there will be many more in our future. And
at one point in our marriage, I said to George,
you know, we're there for each other. We support each other.
We are the cushions, we are the blanket, all of
(36:31):
that stuff. And I said, but we also get to
be the celebrators, you know, I said, we have to
do both. You know, George is always the person that
downplays everything and I'll say, you just want a Peabody award?
Can I bake you a cake? You know? And so
I tried to instill that in our marriage as well,
that we can be the support system but also the
(36:52):
biggest cheerly. I think that that is the other cushion,
you know, the cushion of joy and and of a
party and of a horn and a funny hat and
hooray for you. I completely agree, completely agree. Phil has
done that for me. When I went an Emmy had
this big surprise Emmy party for me. Uh. And we've
given each other so many surprise birthday parties. But I
(37:15):
am a big celebrator, you know. When I first met Phil,
he said, look, I don't you know, I don't really
pay attention to Valentine's staying and stuff like this. And
I said, okay, but I do. So you don't have
to get me anything. But I'm not going to stop
being who I am, so I would always give you
know whatever, I got them the jamas with hearts on it,
or jockey pants and said I love you, or some
(37:36):
dumb thing. A little by little, he started buying me
a present because he was like embarrassed. I said, you
don't have to give me a present. I said, you know,
what I really want is one of those cards that
says you're my wife, You're my life, with a little
red satin heart. That's that's really all I want. And
I have thousands and thousands of cards. He gets presents
(37:56):
and flowers too, but really for me, I want to
just hear it. Yeah, I want to see it. I'm
the same way. George writes me a card every Valentine's
Day and on my birthday, and even for our two
daughters every year on their birthday, he writes like a
ten page letter about the year that they had and
all the great exceptional things they have. Yeah, it's it's
(38:18):
the words mean a lot. They really do. They really do.
And I think if you let your partner know what
it is you want, you know, that's what will make
me happy. I don't need, you know, a jaguar. I
need that, and I think then you can have it,
you know. I think they will give it to you,
and you will give it to them. I always say
(38:40):
to George, you know, I don't like jewelry. I don't
like fancy clothes. You know you're lucky that way. But
I do love. I do love a nice love letter,
h and not on tax tand written. You gotta have
your guidelines. Yeah, yes, it doesn't have to be with
a plume and a feather rpel do. But I wanted
(39:02):
to end on something. My stepfather recently died and he
was ninety nine years old, and he was my mother's
third husband. And I went up to me and to
see her, to see if she was okay, and she said,
this wonderful thing to me about marriage. She said, you know,
the first two husbands, she said, I didn't know who
(39:24):
I was. I didn't know what I was feeling. You know,
I did what I was, you know, supposed to do.
And she said, and I met your stepfather. His name
was Louie. She said, I met Louie when I was
sixty two years old, and I went, oh, this is
what being in love feels like. And she said, you know,
I already had four kids, and I was going away
(39:47):
with him for the weekend, for our you know, first
sort of love weekend. And she said, I was sweating.
I didn't know what to wear. She said, it was
like I was a virgin all over again. And they
were married for thirty years, and she said, you know
what is so amazing is that this man that I
loved with all my heart, he lay next to me.
(40:09):
He died in my arms, and right before he died,
he mouthed, I love you so much. And she said,
you cannot ask for the ending of a marriage to
be any better than that. And she said, now I'm
grieving because I miss him, but I don't grieve any
things about Oh I wish I had I wish I
(40:30):
had said this or done this, or we had this,
or you know. She says, it was pure to the
very end. And it just it made me feel so
good because I thought going up there she was, you know,
going to be a rack, and she just she was
smiling and just so at ease, and it made me,
it made me sort of walk away crying the way
(40:51):
you did from Mike and Tracy. And I can only
hope that George mouths I love you to me, you know,
when he drifts off, so you know, and I thought,
that's a marriage. That's that's a marriage. That's all right, Marlos,
thank you for doing this. Was fun. It was fun.
(41:14):
I think for centuries, philosophers, archaeologists, we've all tried to
figure out what makes a marriage last. And so one
of the things that I have said to friends of
mine or younger friends of mine, when they say, you know,
I have this issue with marriage or I'm thinking about
getting married, is you have to trust your gut. Nothing
else is more important than that. And it's a non
(41:36):
verbal thing, and it's a feeling that you feel literally
in your gut or in your heart. But if you
find yourself engaged and you're weeping a lot, and you're
finding yourself having to self medicate, that is something to
listen to. And all I can tell you in my
experience is I didn't care about the dress. I bought
(42:00):
a Vera Wang dress on sale at an outlet. I
didn't care about the cake. I didn't care about the band.
I just wanted to marry George. And I couldn't get
to the church fast enough and I couldn't run down
the aisle and say I do fast enough. And if
you start to get hung up in a whole bullion
base of other reasons to get married, Oh my mother
(42:23):
loves him, or oh he works in my father's company,
my advice to you is listen to your gut. And
every marriage is different. But there is one thing that
I think it's the most helpful piece of advice I
could give, and it's advice I've given friends, which is,
when you go into a marriage, go into the marriage
(42:46):
for life. Do not go in with an out, don't
go in and say you know what we'll see what happens.
Stay in the marriage, I mean stay in the marriage,
work at the marriage until you have literally beaten a
dead horse, and then if there's no other alternative, you leave.
But go in with the philosophy and the idea of
(43:07):
this is the person I'm going to spend the rest
of my life with. Come war, pestilence, pandemic. I am
with this person, and I'm going to make it work.
That's it. Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli.
(43:28):
Join me next week with my guest author, comedic actress,
and television host Annabelle Gerrich. As we talked about growing
a relationship with our mortality, she went in for a
COVID test and found out she had stage four lung cancer.
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Wentworth and on Instagram the Real Ali Wentworth And if
(43:50):
you have any guests or topics you'd like to share,
a call or text me at three to three four
six three five six or email me Go ask Alli
podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Gali is a
production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio.
(44:13):
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio. Visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi am Alli
Wentworth And you're listening to Go ask Ali? Where this
half of the season, I'm asking how do you grow
a healthy relationship? In this episode, we're chatting all about
that insane lifelong commitment many people make to one person marriage.
(00:30):
And today I'm talking to an outstanding guest who has
been married to the same person for several decades. How
have they done it? My guest is Marlo Thomas, somebody
I admire so much and love. Marlo Thomas is an actress, producer, author,
and social activists, best known for starring on the sitcom
(00:51):
That Girl and her children's franchise Free to Be You
and Me, which I grew up on. She's received four Emmy's,
a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award for her work
in television, and she's been inducted into the Broadcasting and
Cable Hall of Fame. Thomas serves as national outreach director
for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which was founded by
(01:11):
her father, Danny Thomas in nineteen sixty two. In night,
Marlo Thomas married talk show host Phil Donahue and with that,
I'm here to pick her brain. Thank you for joining
me and go ask Alli Marlowe, Hi, Ali, are you
gonna ask me? Am I going to ask you? We're
(01:31):
going to ask together. Okay, Okay, I'm ready. It's gonna
be a marriage of minds on this podcast. So you
guys have been married for forty years, very commendable. And
I have been married to George for twenty years. And
I do think that there is something very similar to
my marriage and your marriage in that you and Phil
(01:53):
are very different people, and George and I are very
different people. And I'm sure when you first got married,
everybody said, well, is not gonna last, because I know
when I got married to George and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral,
people were in the back road making bets on how
long it was last, and it was like six months
was the winning number. But look at us, right, Yeah,
(02:14):
Well they talked about us like, oh, she's a Hollywood
kid and he's a Cleveland guy, and that, you know,
that really doesn't have anything to do with it anyway.
My parents, my parents were from the Midwest. My dad
was from Toledo, Ohio, like one exit from Cleveland, so
I was raised in that kind of middle class. You know,
(02:34):
you work hard, and you go to Catholic Church and
you know all the stuff that he did. I went
to Catholic school. He went to Catholic School. Um, so
a lot of our upbringing was the same. But I
think what attracted us, you know, right away, was our
sexual attraction, of course, but then just the fact that
we we thought about things in the same way. You know,
(02:56):
we were worried about the same things, and we we
were so much alike in our love of work. You
know me, let me ask you, I'm gonna we're going
back to sexy. Don't go so fast. Because you went
on Phil's show that's when you first met him, right right,
And I was set up on a date with George,
But I knew who he was, just like you knew
(03:16):
who Phil Donahue was. And so when you went to
go do the show, did you think you were going
to be sexually attracted to him? No? No, no, no no.
In fact, I didn't even want to do the show.
It was at nine o'clock in the morning and it
was one guest for one hour, and I was on
a tour for a movie, and I said to my
press agent. I'm just not that interesting at nine am
(03:37):
for a whole hour. The only person I don't want
to do it because you have to do it. He's
the biggest thing in the Midwest. You have to do it.
Because he wasn't in l A at the time. So
I said, okay, okay. So I went. And when he
walked in the room, I swear to god, I thought,
oh my god, those blue eyes at white here. I mean,
I just thought were so right away but right again.
(03:59):
And then we went on the stage on his show
and we just flirted, and I mean it was really
I mean it was embarrassing. You know if you saw it.
They showed it to me later and they send us
a tape of it, and I just said, oh my god.
I mean, I was talking about feminism and about being
a strong woman, about never being married, about what I
(04:20):
wanted out of life and all the stuff. And while
I'm saying all that, I'm going, oh, feel You're hilarious,
just a total moron. I mean, I just looked particulous.
And we went out the next night and we became lovers.
That was it. We just went went for it. It's amazing, surprising,
and that I'm yeah, I'm not saying I'm not that
(04:42):
kind of girl. It just wasn't the way I did things. Ever,
I waited a while. I wanted to be sure. I
wanted to see, you know, if I could trust him emotionally.
I mean, I had a whole lot of laws and
rules about these people colde men. I was very careful,
but I wasn't careful at all with Phil. He asked
you out. Well, I left Chicago and I had gone
(05:04):
to Denver for the next part of the tour, and
he called me in Denver and he said I'd love
to see you. And I said, well, I'm in Denver.
Is Denver very far from Chicago? And he goes, oh, no,
I'll come to Denver. I said great. So he came
to Denver and we had to dinner, and then we
(05:25):
took a walk and it was raining, and the studio
had a limousine from me, but Phil, you know Mr Cleveland,
he will not get in a lima. We had to walk.
So we go. We're walking and it's raining and he
gave me his coat and he's stopped and wet. Anyway,
we get back to the hotel and we became lovers
and The next morning, he raced to get back to
(05:45):
Chicago to do his show at nine am, and he
had lost his voice because he had been walking in
the rain, I guess, and poweling. Yeah, well that too.
I had to put a sock in his mouth. But
but at that, you know, that was the first show
that he ever did that they couldn't go on. He
never had missed a show in his life. The second
(06:06):
time he missed the show, we were in New York
and he spent the night and the weekend, and then
Sunday night, he didn't want to go back, so he said,
I'll take the early plane in the morning. Okay, So
he spent another night and the plane was late. It
was whatever the hell happened, and he missed the show.
And his producer, Pat McMillan, who's fabulous, she came into
(06:29):
the office and she sent Phil, this woman is just
not good for you. This isn't gonna work. And he said,
I promised it will never happen again. So that was
two shows in his entire twenty nine years, because of you,
because of me. So anybody knows you can't rely on
flying to Chicago. Flights are always canceled. He just that
(06:52):
was the strength of wanting to be with you. Oh yeah,
might wanted to be with him. Yeah, yeah, I mean
I didn't discourage it. I said, what a good idea.
So we had an extra night, you know. And when
you're really crazy about somebody and you only have a weekend,
it's not enough, you know. He he lands on Friday
and he leaves on Sunday. I mean, it's nothing. It's
(07:14):
so it's so interesting, Marla, because you know, George was
raised in Cleveland too, and when I met him, he
was living in New York and I was living in
l A. And it was the same thing. We had
a long distance relationship for six months. But I do
remember a few times missing important engagements because I wanted
(07:35):
to be with them and that was all that mattered
to me at the timesolutely. Yeah. And I also remember
going to his bachelor pad for the first time. What
was that like when you first went to Phil's apartment?
But he had kids, so it was a very very
different world you walked into. Well, yeah, and it was.
It was terrible, really, I mean in terms of privacy.
(07:56):
Four boys. Yeah, you know, he was living, you know,
like a dad. They had they were completely trying to
organize themselves. It was very sweet, and they all had
their names written on their underwear. And I had never
I'd never been with a man who had dad written
on his un If you don't, if you don't think
(08:19):
that stopped, you're just a bit oh wow. See I
had the opposite when I when I was dating George,
he had this bachelor pad in New York that was
like you you you know, clapped your hands and started
would start playing in the fire with light and you
know it was I walked right into the web. But
you famously did not want to get married. You were
(08:42):
a feminist. You saw no reason for it. And I
actually liked to joke that I have a box of
engagement rings because I was always at the runaway bride.
Really yeah, And yet six months into a long distance
relationship with George he proposed, actually it was two months
he proposed, and which was a huge leap of faith.
(09:04):
But but I kind of knew. I just knew. And
I'm curious, what changed your mind? Why why Mary fell? Well,
first of all, we didn't get married for three years.
He proposed to me after about six months, and I said,
oh no, yeah, I really am crazy for you, but
I don't ever want to be married. So he backed
(09:27):
off and we continued this very exciting, you know, three
day weekend, two day weekend thing, and he just became
he became essential. I mean, that was simply it. I
just I could not be without him. And we broke
up once for three months, obviously before we were married,
(09:47):
because it was so I was living in l a.
And he was living in Chicago, so that four hour
trip was really rough. And at one point we both
said to each other, after about a year and a half,
maybe that this was just hot to handle in every way.
He's got four kids, he's on the air every day.
I was making I made about a dozen television movies
that I've produced and started at that time. So I
(10:09):
was working like a maniac and it just wasn't working.
And we said, you know what, it's great, I'm crazy
for you, but it's just it's it's too disruptive. He said,
I can't leave my kids every weekend, and I said,
I can't, like not be there for the rehearsal or
the edit or the music scoring. So we broke up
for three months, and it was the best thing to
(10:31):
have done, because that's when I knew I can't, I
can't live without him, and he did too. I take it. Yeah,
he was skiing with his sons. He'd taken his four
boys skiing. He was a really and still is. But
he was a really good dad and he had, you know,
custody of his kids. His his ex wife had their daughter,
and he had the four boys. And so they were
(10:53):
skiing somewhere and he called me at three in the morning.
Thankfully I was by myself, and I picked up the
phone and he said, I I never thought anybody could
be this irreplaceable m hm. And I started crying and
he started crying, and that that was it. He felt
what I felt. Yes, it's terrible, it's a pain in
(11:15):
the ascid all this traveling and it just completely disrupts
our lives. But this is what we got. So we
did it. And he said to me, I can't leave
Chicago until I've got my boys out of high school,
which was like another four years. And so then we
bought an apartment and this apartment, actually we created this apartment.
So we've been here forty years. Thirty five years. We
(11:38):
lived in another place and then we waited and then
he moved the whole show here, the whole staff, everybody,
which is incredible. We put our lives together. Well, it's
it's what we had to do. I mean, when you
fall in love, when you really fall in love as
you have, I mean, I know what you and George
have and what we have. If you really fall in love,
(11:58):
there is nobody else. It's hard to leave, but there's
nobody else on the planet to this day that I
want to be with. And you gotta make it work.
So you make it work. I used to I used
to joke to George because I was living in l A.
And obviously I knew his career was was essential and
that I would have to move to New York. But
at one point I said, well, you know, I just
(12:20):
bought my first house and I'm writing screenplays and I'm
doing all this stuff. I said, why don't you leave
ABC News as the political correspondent and do access Hollywood
so we can both live and he hung up the phone.
I said that to Phil, I said to him, why
can't you live in l A. I mean, this place
(12:40):
is loaded with interesting people, And he said, I don't
want it interview those people. You know, I'm not interested
in those people. He said, I can live in New
York or Washington. There are two places that I could live.
So we moved to New York and made a life here. Yeah.
I mean, do you believe in the concept of one
per person? There's that one person out there for you.
(13:03):
I didn't used to think that at all. In fact,
when I was single, I mean, there seemed to be
all kinds of men that looked exciting and interesting. You know,
I had a great time. Yeah. No, because comes a
time when I think, you do meet this person and
that's the one you want. And I have never been
tempted by another man. I mean, not that they're tempting me,
(13:24):
but I'm saying I've never looked at another man I said,
oh boy, I wish I could be with him. I've
never felt that I'm completely satisfied. Yeah, I've never felt
cut either. But I wonder sometimes. I wonder if sometimes
maybe because I had experiences before I met George. You know,
I had the French director, and I went out with
(13:45):
the British actor and this and that, so I know
what that is. So when I'm at a restaurant and
I see some you know, SIMI and looking guy, I
know what that is. I've been there. I don't you know,
there's no fantasy that goes along with it. Yeah, well,
I think that that's the good part about getting married,
you know, not at two. You know, when I think
(14:05):
of who I went out with when I was twenty
two or twenty six or thirty one, even it was like, seriously,
you know, but I think you need some time. You know.
They say men need to sew their oaths. What's to women?
I agree, you know, I agree. You need to experience
it and then, and that's how you can narrow it
down and say, Okay, yeah you don't you gotta test
drive a bunch of cars before you buy, but you do,
(14:29):
especially with a lifetime warranty exactly, which reminds me we're
due for a tune up. There's a lot more to
come after this short break. Welcome back with more go
(14:53):
ask Alli. I actually have a friend who is going
through a horrific divorce, and she said, you know what,
don't ever marry anyone you wouldn't want a divorce. Which
it's interesting when you think about it, like if if
God forbid George and I got divorced, he would be
a kind person, you know, what I mean. He wouldn't
(15:15):
be a monster, he would be fair. And I thought
that was an interesting way of twisting the idea of marriage.
That's why we didn't do a prenup. You know, our
business managers both were insistent that we do a prenup,
and Phil and I talked about it, and we said,
us like betting against ourselves. Yeah, we're going into this forever,
God forbid, something happens. I trust that you'll be nice,
(15:39):
and I trusted you'll be nice, And so we didn't
and I'm glad we didn't. Again, we didn't have an
escape clause. I think that's important to say. I'm putting
all my chips on this. Yeah, we didn't sign a
prenup because neither of us really had any money to
prenup um. So George and I were so lucky to
be part of book What Makes a Marriage Last, which
(16:02):
is a wonderful collection of inspiring and cannon conversations between
you and Phil and other married couples. Uh. It's just
a beautiful and helpful read because each couple has their
own story and their own obstacles they've overcome, and their
own way of quote unquote doing it. And I want
to talk about a few of those sort of universal
challenges that come up in a marriage, to hear your
(16:23):
perspective and what you've learned in the process of writing
this book and what makes a marriage last. So the
first one is infidelity, because you know, that's a huge
marriage breaker, and it's it's and it's something that I've
known people that were able to get through it, and
I've known people that haven't. And did you talk to
(16:44):
people who were able to weather that storm where somebody
was unfaithful and they kept they kept the marriage going.
The only person that admitted to it was Jesse Jackson,
and he had a child out of marriage. And she's
a firecracker, that Jackie Jackson. And she said, and she
calls him reverend, as I call him reverend to remind
(17:06):
him of who he should be. But she said, she says,
I have five children, the reverend has six. Um and
she said something so interesting, she said that this marriage
is a test of my character. I said, forever sickness
and health, and Richard poor and bad, good and bad,
and and that's why I'm here and we have our marriage.
(17:27):
And I'd say to women, stay away from him. He
is already taken, so she came to Grips with it
and I said, did you throw him out? She said,
of course, I threw him out, but then he's not
going anywhere. He came back, so they got through it.
I don't know. I know Phil wouldn't get through it
no way. In fact, we were talking about this with
Kelly Rippa and Mark and Suelos because he was very jealous.
(17:51):
And Phil was very jealous when we first started going
together and I did a movie with Chris Christofferson and
he was so sexy. I mean really, I had to
remind myself literally that I was married, because we made
out all day in this particular love scene. And Phil
was very jealous of him. And he came to the
hotel where I was staying in the middle of the night,
(18:12):
filled in and I opened the door, and the minute
I saw him, I said, oh, come on. So I said,
come in, come and look and see what you can find.
And he said, oh, no, I'll just missed you. I said, oh,
I know you did, dear, come in. It was like
four in the morning and I had to be up
in a half hour. And Kelly Ripper said to him,
what would you have done Bill if Christopher Safferson had
(18:34):
been there. He said, I would have I would have
turned around and left, and I said, that's right. She said, well,
my husband, that would have been police tape. I said,
I know, but he would have been so brokenhearted and
so disappointed. And I think that would have been my
reaction to I don't think I could come back from Matt. Yeah.
I've talked about it with George too, because you know,
(18:57):
I love to put scenarios in front of him, whether
he likes it or not. And I used to say, okay,
so you you come home from work unexpectedly I'm in
bed with somebody else. And George always says, you know,
I think I would quietly walk out heartbroken and that
would be that like I I you know, I could
(19:19):
not bounce back from it. Yeah, I said, well, I'd
have a full, jealous, dramatic rage and I throw things
out the window onto the street, and I, you know,
write a book and then have a movie made about it.
But I wouldn't have been able to I don't think
i'd be able to weather that. I really don't. It'd
never be the same. Trust is Trust is hard, and
(19:41):
you know, my hats off to couples that are able
to do it. Um addiction. Yeah, there's a lot of
addiction in the book. Well, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Guest,
they've been married thirty eight years, forty seven years. Uh,
she was addicted to all kinds of prescription medicine and stuff.
And he didn't even about it. And then he started
(20:02):
to notice it, and but they had to weather that.
I mean, it's a big thing for somebody to go
into the step program and all that. But he didn't
even notice it at first. It's interesting. He just said
that he he thought she was drinking a little bit
too much, and he mentioned it once or twice, but
he didn't know it was also connected to pills. And
(20:24):
she said, I've never been a better actress. She said,
addicts are really good actors, you know. She said, you
just you really learned how to hide it and where
to get it from. And you know, they go to
people's houses and she she'd go through their medicine cabinets.
She was a real addict, and and she's so gifted
and smart and a writer and a good actress and
(20:45):
all these things. Did you did you talk to people
that were unable to jump that hurdle. Did they talk
about previous marriages or things that didn't work out before
they married that long term person? No, not because of addiction.
The people that had ted dayson was married. This is
his third marriage to Mary Steve Bergin, and it's been there.
It's thirtieth year. It's a great marriage. They're they're adorable.
(21:08):
But I said to him, how did you have the
guts to go on to a third marriage. I mean
I would have thought, okay, I I don't know how
to do this. He said, well, I realized that I
had to stop being a liar. I just thought that
was so startling. And I said, well, what did you
lie about? He said? I lied about everything. Uh, he said,
I cheated, you know, I was unfaithful all the time.
(21:30):
But I mostly lied about who I was. He said,
because I had this vision that a man with a
woman has to be strong and be the white knight
and have all the answers and be the one that
you know, can carry the burden and all that. So
I pretended always that that's who I was, But I wasn't.
(21:52):
I was crumbling inside. I was a mess inside, he said.
I was a hot mess most of my life. I
think that would be true for a lot of people, because,
you know, I think back on the relationship I had
before I met George, and I was completely acting. I
wanted to be whatever he wanted me to be, and
(22:12):
so if he wanted me to be, you know, sexy
actress girl who could also make a baked chicken, you know,
I I tried to be whatever he wanted me to
because I didn't want him to leave. And I remember
when I met George, I made a very conscious decision
that I was not going to play games. You know,
I was not gonna I was staying with a friend
(22:33):
in New York when we had our first date, and
he asked me out for another date. And the friend
that I was staying with was whispering behind me when
he called and said, you know, I'd love to take
you out again. And she says, tell him you're busy,
and I was like, no, go away, and she said
tell him that you have a date with Prince Albert
of Monico. Oh my god, get out of here. And
I decided I was not going to play any games.
(22:56):
I was not going to pretend to be anybody. I
wasn't because you know, I really liked him, and it
wasn't going to be a thing if he didn't genuinely
like who I was, And it made all the difference
in the world. I'm sure I did. No, it was
I'm glad I did. I mean, you know now, one
of the things that I like to talk to my
girlfriends about, some of which are in your book, Mauritika
(23:18):
Hargety and I talk a lot about how couples fight,
and George and I certainly have come a long long
way from when we were first married because I was
a mean fighter and George was a shutdown fighter, so
I would scream and yelled, he would get very quiet. Now,
after twenty years, we've learned to immediately confront the issue
(23:44):
and then deal with it in a loving way, because nothing,
nothing good comes from blaming. And and now we we
each have each other's handbook, like we know, we understand
each other, we know what this is. But you must
have talked to a lot of couples about fighting right
and how they learned about themselves through fighting right, Well,
(24:06):
you do. I mean with with me and Phil, we're
kind of like you and George. Phil was the you
clam up and I would chase him. I would chase
him to get him to hear what I had to say,
because he didn't want to hear it. The minute he
knew it was a fight, he'd screaming, hell, whatever, and
then he disappeared, and I would scream, mihale and follow
him until I could get something to happen, some some resolution.
(24:29):
We finally came to a place where we could. You know,
well now we rarely fight, but we came to a
place where he would listen and I and I realized
an interesting thing. Kelly Rippa said this. She said she
realized that she would fix her face so that no
matter what Mark said, she would not change the expression
(24:52):
on her face, so that she could get him to
tell her what was bothering him without him thinking she
was judging her. And I thought that was so great,
because I think I kind of did that too. Instead
of reacting, I learned to let him get it out,
let him say what it is, and don't defend yourself
on everything. Let him say it, and then when he
(25:14):
got all out, he was better. But I because I
would fight the minit he set something I said. I
did not say that that you misunderstood that, you know,
whatever the hell it was, he just needs to get
it out. But I One of the things that James
Carville said that we now use as one of our
mantras is that when they're in the middle, he and
his wife Mary matt Lan, when when they're in the
(25:36):
middle of one of those circular arguments that we all have,
he says, let's just kick this can down the road,
he said, And I think every good marriage has like
a whole alley full of cans. And it's true. And
when Phil and I get into one of those where
you're going around and around, he did say one day,
let's kick this can down the road. And we both
started laughing, and we thought, it's so true. This is
(25:59):
a this is something that is of no importance. You
said you have no but you said you, you said
you taken no, you said you know, and it just
means nothing. And you can slam moll the door as
you want and not talk for an hour or two.
I can't stay clammed up for too long. I'm not
the kind of person that cannot talk to my husband
for three days. And I know people do that. We can't.
(26:22):
I can't do that. Now we can. We We don't
go to bed angry I mean, we've had a lot
of sleepless nights, but we won't go to bed angry. Right,
We do that too. Did you ask Mary Mattlin and
James Carvill about fighting about politics? Didday early on in
their marriage have to sort of take that off the agenda?
It was interesting, said, politics is something we do for
(26:43):
a living. You know, our life is about We've got kids,
we have family, we have a house, we have cooking,
we do all this stuff that we love. We try
to stay away from politics. That's what's what we do
for a living. Which is smart. Yeah, yeah, I mean
if you can do it, yeah, I mean I don't
(27:03):
I think it. Phil believed in somebody as awful as
we've just been through. I don't know that I could
have handled that, but I think I think I probably
would have killed him. That's why Kelly and Conway and
her husband were so fascinating to the American public as
I don't know how they did. I don't know, but
you know, also Cure Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, they lost
(27:27):
all their money to Bernie made off thirty years of
savings and put it all was made off, and it
was suggested by her father her stepfather, and Kevin didn't
blame her. I mean, they didn't go into that. They
just sat down and said, okay, well let's let's face it.
And they and they got stronger from it. They actually
(27:48):
became closer to it, and they said, and they faced it.
They said, look, we're not money people. That was that
was our own idiocy. You know, we're not money people.
Were actors and they have a terrific marriage. Well, you
know what was fascinating though, when you're asking these questions,
is that because they wanted to do a book to
find out what's the secret sauce of a long marriage,
(28:10):
we didn't come across people who had divorced their spouses,
and they had divorced previous ones. But what we learned
really is that the people who stay married, they still
go through all the crap that everybody goes through, some
worse than others, but they're not looking for the exit sign.
That really is the difference. If you decide that this
(28:31):
is it. You know, Cia Cedric said, there's no plan B,
so no matter what happens, you and I have said, well,
infidelity would be our exit sign. Maybe everybody has one.
But thankfully they didn't come to it. So whether it
was infidelity or losing their money, or or sickness like
Michael J. Fox and Tracy and the third year of
(28:55):
their marriage he got that diagnosis. Third year, I mean,
that is a huge thing. And I I know people.
I know couples who have broken up because one of
them was ill and with the degenerative disease like MS
and they couldn't deal with it. They're partners, they are
(29:15):
life partners, Mike and Tracing, absolutely, and they're very much
in law. And that's that's an interesting couple to bring
up to because I think it was no question Mike's
illness was something that they were going to fight together
and they created the Michael J. Fox Foundation, And it
was it was his drinking after he got the diagnosis.
(29:38):
That's when Tracy said, are you kidding, Like, we're not
doing this. We're not doing this, Like I can handle Parkinson's,
but you know, the drinking is the game changer, so
forget that. And that went on for like a year
and a half until he got ahold of it. Yeah,
you know, because I said to him, were you afraid
that she'd bail out on you? And he said, well,
(29:59):
I was afraid that I would be available, and I'm
one of the things was my drinking and I had
to put that together. But she's she's. I mean, I
I left them in tears. I Phil wasn't with me,
he had the flu, and I kept the date because
they were traveling somewhere. And when I was walking home
because they're just a few blocks up the street, and
(30:21):
I started crying and I thought, I'm crying because being
with them has made me love my husband more. Being
with them has made me realize that this is marriage
and they and they get it and I get it,
and it really it was a very emotional, not because
(30:41):
they weren't. They weren't emotional. They were just natural, normal people.
But he was having trouble, the usual trouble that we see,
and she was not fixing it for him, you know,
she wasn't moving things for him. He was who he
is and that was fine, and she ben't trying to
make it look better. I just was so I thought,
(31:04):
that's what that's what it means to really love somebody
and accept all of them, you know, but that it
just just really touched me. We're gonna take a short
break and we'll be right back welcome back. I wonder
(31:28):
if you think this is true. I speaking of Mike
and Tracy, who are good friends of ours and we
might have been traveling with them when you kept that appointment.
I find that George and I gravitate towards happily married
couples absolutely and are uncomfortable with people that aren't um
And I can tell you I think people that are
(31:50):
in kind of rocky marriages tend to want to be
with people in rocky marriages, you know. But George and
I are completely uneasy and don't feel our authentic selves
if we're not with other people that are kind of
from that marriage tribe. And it's really bad for you too.
I mean Phil has told me that, you know, everybody
(32:13):
will be talking and he'll be talking to this one
guy who's like really putting his wife down. And Phil said,
I feel like I'm supposed to say, yeah, I know,
Marlow is really rough, But he said, I don't know
what to do. He said, I just you know, say
something stupid like oh god, that's rough, you know. But
he said, I like that I'm expected to be one
of the boys to be unhappy. And the other thing
(32:35):
is is that you do wear the energy of an
unhappy couple or an unhappy person. I mean, if you're
with the woman who's unhappy, you're going to leave the
luncheon until Jesus. I'm just down. I'm really down. I'm
I'm carrying her thing with me. Also, unhappy married people
zing each other. And you know me well enough to
know that I'm a bit of a fixer. So like
(32:56):
if a couple is arguing, I would say, Oh, he
didn't mean it like that. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna
make it all work now for them. You know, you're
instant therapist. Yeah, yeah, So it's it's bad for me
in many ways. I'm a Vinski, as they say. I.
I had the experience of when we certainly when we
first moved to New York from d C, that I
(33:17):
was asked to lunch by women I didn't know very
well but that we're you know, graciously inviting me out,
and they would become bitch fests about their husbands, just
oh he's driving me crazy or I can't stand him,
or oh I'm having an affair, and and I just
I couldn't breathe. And I ended up writing a chapter
(33:39):
in one of my books about how I felt. Boy,
I'm so uninteresting. I go to these lunches. I'm not
screwing the tennis pro. I I don't hate my husband.
I have nothing to say. Does anybody want to talk
about Syria? You know, I'm not going to bash my
husband just for the sake of bashing it, which, by
the way, is different from if you and I went
for a walk in Central Park and I said, you know,
(34:02):
I'm I'm having a problem with George. This is what
it is. Can you help me fix it? This was
like real husband bashing, and in a way that I
couldn't stomach at all. Right, Yeah, Now, I've I've been
with women who do that, but also with women who
asked me to lunch and said, you know, my husband
is like really screaming all the time, and what do
(34:22):
you do? And and and sometimes also about you know,
not having enough sex or something, and you say you
want to help, because that's that's that's loving. Now I've
I've now that we're at this age. I've lately I've
been saying coconut, oil a lot and coconut. I'm telling you.
(34:43):
I have friends that are like, oh, I don't know,
and I go just coconut oil and call me in
the morning. You have said that marriage is the cushion
of life, and what do you mean by that? Well,
you know when you get rejected, you know, and who
doesn't when something doesn't go well? You know what? What
brings you down in whatever way, either brings you down emotionally,
(35:05):
whether it brings you down about your own self esteem
and your own worth, whatever happens where somebody hurts you
in some way. And then there's your marriage, and there's
your guy who says, oh, honey, you have this and
you have that. And as you know, I talk a lot,
and I'm the kind of person who might say the
wrong thing at a party to somebody. But if I do,
(35:26):
if I say something and I shouldn't have said it,
I think I hurt somebody's feelings or whatever. I'll come
home and I'll say they said, oh god, I shouldn't
have said that. Why did I say that? Oh my god,
I shouldn't whatever, And Phil will say, oh, come on,
you were the most interesting person at the party. Everybody
was crazy. But he won't let me go there. He
won't let me feel bad and sad, and that is
(35:47):
what I But that's a tiny thing when you lose
your dad, as I did, and I was broken hearted
and it was sudden and it was over like that.
In the middle of the night, I thought I'd lose
my mind and feel was just over me and on me,
and he was he wasn't a cushion. Well that's that's
a good mate. And I love it because I think
(36:09):
George is my cushion as well. But I also wanted
to instill in our marriage that you know, we're both
there for you know, the difficult times, the hard times,
and there will be many more in our future. And
at one point in our marriage, I said to George,
you know, we're there for each other. We support each other.
We are the cushions, we are the blanket, all of
(36:31):
that stuff. And I said, but we also get to
be the celebrators, you know, I said, we have to
do both. You know, George is always the person that
downplays everything and I'll say, you just want a Peabody award?
Can I bake you a cake? You know? And so
I tried to instill that in our marriage as well,
that we can be the support system but also the
(36:52):
biggest cheerly. I think that that is the other cushion,
you know, the cushion of joy and and of a
party and of a horn and a funny hat and
hooray for you. I completely agree, completely agree. Phil has
done that for me. When I went an Emmy had
this big surprise Emmy party for me. Uh. And we've
given each other so many surprise birthday parties. But I
(37:15):
am a big celebrator, you know. When I first met Phil,
he said, look, I don't you know, I don't really
pay attention to Valentine's staying and stuff like this. And
I said, okay, but I do. So you don't have
to get me anything. But I'm not going to stop
being who I am, so I would always give you
know whatever, I got them the jamas with hearts on it,
or jockey pants and said I love you, or some
(37:36):
dumb thing. A little by little, he started buying me
a present because he was like embarrassed. I said, you
don't have to give me a present. I said, you know,
what I really want is one of those cards that
says you're my wife, You're my life, with a little
red satin heart. That's that's really all I want. And
I have thousands and thousands of cards. He gets presents
(37:56):
and flowers too, but really for me, I want to
just hear it. Yeah, I want to see it. I'm
the same way. George writes me a card every Valentine's
Day and on my birthday, and even for our two
daughters every year on their birthday, he writes like a
ten page letter about the year that they had and
all the great exceptional things they have. Yeah, it's it's
(38:18):
the words mean a lot. They really do. They really do.
And I think if you let your partner know what
it is you want, you know, that's what will make
me happy. I don't need, you know, a jaguar. I
need that, and I think then you can have it,
you know. I think they will give it to you,
and you will give it to them. I always say
(38:40):
to George, you know, I don't like jewelry. I don't
like fancy clothes. You know you're lucky that way. But
I do love. I do love a nice love letter,
h and not on tax tand written. You gotta have
your guidelines. Yeah, yes, it doesn't have to be with
a plume and a feather rpel do. But I wanted
(39:02):
to end on something. My stepfather recently died and he
was ninety nine years old, and he was my mother's
third husband. And I went up to me and to
see her, to see if she was okay, and she said,
this wonderful thing to me about marriage. She said, you know,
the first two husbands, she said, I didn't know who
(39:24):
I was. I didn't know what I was feeling. You know,
I did what I was, you know, supposed to do.
And she said, and I met your stepfather. His name
was Louie. She said, I met Louie when I was
sixty two years old, and I went, oh, this is
what being in love feels like. And she said, you know,
I already had four kids, and I was going away
(39:47):
with him for the weekend, for our you know, first
sort of love weekend. And she said, I was sweating.
I didn't know what to wear. She said, it was
like I was a virgin all over again. And they
were married for thirty years, and she said, you know
what is so amazing is that this man that I
loved with all my heart, he lay next to me.
(40:09):
He died in my arms, and right before he died,
he mouthed, I love you so much. And she said,
you cannot ask for the ending of a marriage to
be any better than that. And she said, now I'm
grieving because I miss him, but I don't grieve any
things about Oh I wish I had I wish I
(40:30):
had said this or done this, or we had this,
or you know. She says, it was pure to the
very end. And it just it made me feel so
good because I thought going up there she was, you know,
going to be a rack, and she just she was
smiling and just so at ease, and it made me,
it made me sort of walk away crying the way
(40:51):
you did from Mike and Tracy. And I can only
hope that George mouths I love you to me, you know,
when he drifts off, so you know, and I thought,
that's a marriage. That's that's a marriage. That's all right, Marlos,
thank you for doing this. Was fun. It was fun.
(41:14):
I think for centuries, philosophers, archaeologists, we've all tried to
figure out what makes a marriage last. And so one
of the things that I have said to friends of
mine or younger friends of mine, when they say, you know,
I have this issue with marriage or I'm thinking about
getting married, is you have to trust your gut. Nothing
else is more important than that. And it's a non
(41:36):
verbal thing, and it's a feeling that you feel literally
in your gut or in your heart. But if you
find yourself engaged and you're weeping a lot, and you're
finding yourself having to self medicate, that is something to
listen to. And all I can tell you in my
experience is I didn't care about the dress. I bought
(42:00):
a Vera Wang dress on sale at an outlet. I
didn't care about the cake. I didn't care about the band.
I just wanted to marry George. And I couldn't get
to the church fast enough and I couldn't run down
the aisle and say I do fast enough. And if
you start to get hung up in a whole bullion
base of other reasons to get married, Oh my mother
(42:23):
loves him, or oh he works in my father's company,
my advice to you is listen to your gut. And
every marriage is different. But there is one thing that
I think it's the most helpful piece of advice I
could give, and it's advice I've given friends, which is,
when you go into a marriage, go into the marriage
(42:46):
for life. Do not go in with an out, don't
go in and say you know what we'll see what happens.
Stay in the marriage, I mean stay in the marriage,
work at the marriage until you have literally beaten a
dead horse, and then if there's no other alternative, you leave.
But go in with the philosophy and the idea of
(43:07):
this is the person I'm going to spend the rest
of my life with. Come war, pestilence, pandemic. I am
with this person, and I'm going to make it work.
That's it. Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli.
(43:28):
Join me next week with my guest author, comedic actress,
and television host Annabelle Gerrich. As we talked about growing
a relationship with our mortality, she went in for a
COVID test and found out she had stage four lung cancer.
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Wentworth and on Instagram the Real Ali Wentworth And if
(43:50):
you have any guests or topics you'd like to share,
a call or text me at three to three four
six three five six or email me Go ask Alli
podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Gali is a
production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio.
(44:13):
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio. Visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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