Perspective: Secrets of celebrity marriages that last

For all the fawning attention they receive, Hollywood couples remain the brunt of jokes about short-lived and superficial romance. The epic list of “shortest celebrity marriages” includes Britney Spears and Jason Alexander (55 hours), Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman (six days), Cher and Gregg Allman (10 days) and Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds (two weeks) — with Kim Kardashian and Drew Barrymore runners-up at two months each with their former spouses.

Whether short or long, dissolving marriages are dissected by a hungry news media that directs Americans’ attention to relationship failures.

But what about the celebrity romances that last? What about Faith Hill and Tim McGraw (27 years), or Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan (34 years), Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson (35 years), Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick (37 years), Denzel and Pauletta Washington (40 years) or Martin and Janet Sheen (62 years)?

Shouldn’t we be paying attention to them, too — and maybe even learning something from them?

Denzel Washington has said: “There is no secret to the perfect marriage.” But Tom Hanks disagrees, insisting that “there is a secret, and we bottled it. We’re not gonna tell anyone. And we’ll sell it to you individually, for $17 billion.”

Since I don’t have that kind of money, I decided to see what I could learn from stories, interviews and videos about something truly transcendent out of Tinseltown: marriages that endure. Here are themes that stood out:

Positive energy

As quaint as it sounds, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw swear by not only date nights, but also simple moments together. As McGraw said, “Funny, as we get older, it’s less about the big gestures and more about just spending the time together at home.” He said that for the couple’s 20th wedding anniversary, “we stayed home, in our pajamas and watched TV. We loved it.”

Kevin Bacon said, “To me, walking down the street together” with Kyra, just talking, “still feels like a nice place to be.” Kyra Sedgwick added about Bacon, “We’ve always been each other’s biggest support and fans.”

Tracy Pollan said of her relationship with Michael J. Fox, “We really listen to each other, we are there for each other when we need each other. And then we also give each other space when that’s needed.”

There’s a lot of gratitude expressed in these marriages. As Fox said of his wife, “Tracy gives our family everything that we need. Any good in our family, anything good that we do, comes from her.”

Asked if they celebrate anniversaries, Martin Sheen said he and Janet don’t fuss over the date because in his words, “Every day is a celebration with this dame.”

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Trust God

The centrality of faith shows up with surprising consistency in these lasting unions. (Not what we expect for Hollywood marriages.) After mentioning their ritual of taking a quiet moment of worship before concerts, Faith Hill describes her marriage as “always praying.”

After giving up faith early in his career, Sheen recounts becoming devout in his Catholic faith after he went into rehab and suffered a serious heart attack. Now he can’t imagine living without it, concluding, “Regret is useless and faith is necessary and love is everything.”

“A spiritual foundation helps everything — marriage, work, peace of mind,” agrees Denzel Washington who reads the Bible “every day,” and has said, “I try to make sure I try to put God first in everything.”

Washington jokes about a moment he was first “filled with the Holy Ghost” and feeling scared about what commitment this meant for his life: “Wait a minute, I didn’t want to go this deep, I want to party.” But, he said, “I went in the prayer room and gave it up and let go and experienced something I’ve never experienced in my life.”

Hanks joined the Greek Orthodox Church when he married Wilson — with prayer becoming a foundation to his family’s life. “God works every day,” the actor said.

That includes the hard days — like when their family faced Wilson’s breast cancer, Hanks’ diabetes and their son’s substance abuse — and they leaned on faith and prayer to make it through.

Let challenges draw you closer

About her experience fighting breast cancer with her husband by her side, Wilson has reflected, “You never know how your spouse is going to react in a situation like this.” But she pointed out this experience brought them closer together: “I was so amazed, so blown away by the care my husband gave me. … Who knew it would make you even closer?”

Describing the pain of her father’s passing, Hill said of her husband, “He was so present for the passing of both my parents. You reveal yourself when you are going through struggles and that’s just another layer of partnership.”

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When asked the secret of their happy marriage, Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, pointed to his wife, who laughingly agreed on the value of her “strong quads” to hold up his shaky frame — with her husband adding “my body is changing and shifting, and she’s absorbing every bit of it,” quipping that this was a “metaphor for our lives.”

During the filming of “Apocalypse Now,” Sheen suffered a dual physical and emotional breakdown in a remote filming location that almost killed him. At the time, he remembers: “I just wanted to get to Janet.”

Once arriving at the hospital, the actor remembers seeing his wife running down the corridor as the staff wheeled him in on a gurney. Janet never left his side during his recovery. As Sheen recollects with emotion: “I completely fell apart. My spirit was exposed. I cried and cried. I turned completely gray. I was in intensive care. Janet slept on the floor beside me.” 

Keep smiling

During another life-threatening surgery later on, Janet Sheen was again by her husband’s side, encouraging him not to take himself too seriously. The actor reflects, “She was there the whole time, and I laughed my way back.”

Keeping things light can help any relationship. When Hanks was asked if he would join his singer-wife in a duet, he said, “We don’t want to scare the children.” Describing how their love has continued to grow over the past three decades, Hanks said of his wife, “She makes me laugh harder now than (ever).”

Keep promises

When relationship challenges arise, these couples hold on — to each other, and to the marriage. As McGraw said: “We made a commitment to each other a long time ago that we’re not going to give up.” His wife Hill added, “When you love someone, you commit to be there for them for the highs, the lows, anytime.”

Denzell Washington agrees. “Everybody has their ups and downs; we’ve had ours. It’s hard work, you know. But we made a commitment.”  He later added, “It’s not all the honeymoon ... so you work at it.

That means doing what you say you’re going to do. About husband Kevin Bacon, Sedgwick remarks, “If he says he’s going to meet you on the corner of 86th and Broadway on the northwest side of the street at 2:05, he’s going to be there. If he’s not there, something happened. And for someone who didn’t have a lot of people showing up in the right way at the right time when they said they would, it’s the world.”

When mistakes are made, talk through them openly. Hanks said on one podcast, “We learned the secret of happiness with each other a long time ago, and that’s always telling the truth.”

Explaining why they fight for their marriage, Hanks and Wilson wrote recently, “our marriage is the foundation of our family (and) is sacred to us.”

In 1995, Pauletta and Denzel Washington renewed their vows, with Pauletta acknowledging the difficulties of marriage: “I live with this man. I see the down part. I see the sad part. I see every part.” She adds, “He knows he has that stability in me as his wife. That gives him strength.”

Pour yourself into others

A final theme is that many of these couples have a history of giving generously to the people around them. For instance, Wilson and Hanks are known for their kindness to others.

Perhaps not coincidentally, each of the couples mentioned also have children together. Sheen said if he had it to do over again, he wouldn’t have had four children, he would have had eight.

Denzel Washington remarked, “My children are good people. They are not perfect, but they are generous and humble and kind. My wife did that.”

So, there you have it. Service. Integrity. Faith. Gratitude. Does any of this sound familiar? It should.

The secrets of happy celebrity marriages are much the same as they are for the rest of us.

Jacob Hess is the former editor of Public Square Magazine and writes at Publish Peace on Substack. He has worked to promote liberal-conservative understanding since the publication of “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong)” with Phil Neisser. With Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield, he also authored “The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.”