Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this past October. They’ve been together since 1993, when they met on the set of Pontiac Moon. In Hollywood years, this is basically an eternity. One of Ted and Mary’s more recent ways of bonding has been to do Wordle together, no matter what time zone each of them is in. I totally relate to this tradition, as I usually do Connections with my husband. I genuinely love how “normal” these two are.
While Ted was talking to Adam Scott for his podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Adam brought up that he was on the water polo and diving teams in high school. During his brief stint on the diving team, Adam talked about how embarrassing it was to climb out of the pool while wearing a Speedo. While Adam’s experience was cringey, Ted, who is 25 years older than Adam, had a totally different relationship with wearing Speedos. Ted was so into them that he lived his best Speedo life throughout the 1980s. In fact, he only (finally) stopped wearing them after Mary told him not to at the beginning of their relationship.
Ted Danson is sharing one of the compromises he had to make for his wife.
During a recent episode of his podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” featuring Adam Scott, the topic of Speedos came up. Scott said he felt “embarrassed” to be seen in his Speedo as a teenager in high school, leading Danson to share he “was proud of my Speedos.”
The 78-year-old actor shared he “had about a good 10 years” of wearing Speedos before meeting his wife, actress Mary Steenburgen.
“The first time I put ’em on when we’re together and my kids were all together on a vacation, all the kids are finally together,” he said. “And Mary looked at me and said, ‘No.’ And my daughters went, ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for saying no to his Speedo.’”
In the end, the “Cheers” star was able to admit that “it was the right move” to ban him from wearing Speedos, with Scott praising Steenburgen’s wisdom.
I’m absolutely with Mary on this one. Of course, marriage is about compromise, but with some things, the wife gets to pull rank. Speedos is absolutely one of them. I can totally hear Mary say “NO.” in a firm tone that reads “This is not up for discussion.” I’m also dying at how easily Ted was like, ”Yes m’am”. I bet his kids were relieved that someone finally got him to stop wearing them. They must have been so embarrassed! To be fair to Ted, Speedos were popular in the 80s, but the trend had moved towards looser bathing suits by the 90s. Mary was just keeping him up with the fashion of the times. I’m sure he looked good in a Speedo, though.
Mary also came up at the beginning of the interview. Ted and Adam talked about meeting for the first time when Adam and Mary were filming Step Brothers in 2007. Apparently, the set was so crazy that they’d film the scripted version of the scene in the mornings, then have couches and a screen set up in the afternoon for people to watch the improved takes. Adam would sometimes watch on his days off because no two takes were ever the same. Ted and Adam also praised Kathryn Hahn’s performance in the movie. That is so cool. It sounds like a super fun production. I love how much praise Adam has for Mary. She’s a great actress who’s managed to tap into so many different genres.
Photos credit: Colleen E. Hayes/Netflix, Gregg DeGuire/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Startracksphoto.com, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon