When Phil met Marlo, they were so famous that last names were superfluous. Maybe they still are, more than 40 years later, as this pair of octogenarians sit in their New York City apartment and say …
He: “Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married for 74 years this July. They read the Bible to each other every night before going to bed.”
She: “We aren’t experts or psychologists. We just went out to find out what makes marriages last.”
He (last name Donahue) is 84 years old. She (last name Thomas) is 80. They are eager to talk about their new book, their first literary collaboration, which is titled “What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life” (HarperOne).
That title is somewhat misleading. This is not a “how-to” manual. Nor does it give some sort of quick-fix answers that would make it suitable for the self-help section of your bookstore. Rather it is a collection of what amounts to short stories about love and the ways in which it can make you happy and drive you mad.
The 40 couples — which include Ron and Cheryl Howard (married in 1975), Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner (2013, but together for decades), John McEnroe and Patty Smyth (1997), Deepak and Rita Chopra (1970), Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann (2004), Al Roker and Deborah Roberts (1995), Billy and Janice Crystal (1970), Alan and Arlene Alda (1957), and many more — offer all manner of honest insights.
The seed of this book came in 2019 when Marlo and Phil learned that friends of theirs were getting divorced after 38 years of marriage. They talked about marriage and what makes one work.
They drifted back to the past, to 1977 when Marlo, the daughter of famous comedian Danny Thomas, title star of an ABC sitcom called “That Girl,” movie star and producer, notable feminist and “famously single,” was a guest on Phil’s wildly popular and eponymous talk show He was a divorced father with four sons.
Now, when people watch a YouTube clip of a later interview, they will tell you that they can see sparks were flying, and they would not be wrong.
They started dating, split up for a short time and were married on May 21, 1980. They lived here for decade, Marlo commuting most of the time from jobs on the coasts. Then and ever since they have been remarkably private about their private lives. That’s admirable for such a high-profile pair.
And so they made a list of people they knew, or knew of, who had had lengthy marriages. They started arranging interviews. The only couples to turn them down, gently mind you, were George and Laura Bush and Barack and Michelle Obama.
Kevin Bacon needed some persuasion, at first saying “no thanks” and telling them, “My piece of advice is not to take advice from celebrities.”
He finally agreed and he and wife Kyra Sedgwick (1988) are compelling and forthright, talking about their losing millions due to Bernie Madoff. Most every one of the couples has something to offer.
They interviewed Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson, who have been married since 1962 and were only one of two couples that recorded the ensuing conversation. (The other was journalists Bob Woodward and Elsa Walsh, who also told them that the first time she knew how he felt about her was when “he told her who Deep Throat was.”)
Phil and Marlo spend many hours of their cooped-up days on promotional chores for and interviews about their book. Each has their own office. In his, Phil watches a lot of TV, saying, “I am a politics junkie. How to explain this time to the yet unborn? How did this happen? I really think there will be more books written about the Trump era than have been written about Abraham Lincoln.”
With their housekeeper of 30 years cooped up elsewhere, Phil and Marlo are nicely fending for themselves. They cook dinners together and Phil has learned to operate the washer and dryer.
Marlo juggles so many projects, including work for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, which her father helped found in the 1950s, that her husband playfully refers to her as his “water bug.”
They are very happy with their book, which is sitting on a variety of bestseller lists. In June they plan to embark on a podcast based on the book.
"lasting" - Google News
June 07, 2020 at 04:50PM
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Phil & Marlo & 40 couples share secrets to lasting unions - Boston Herald
"lasting" - Google News
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