For Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.
The ‘Boy Meets World’ alum revealed that the first time he invited his wife out for coffee in college, his current wife brutally refused, saying she was “too short.”
The couple, who will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary next month, reflected on their first meeting in an interview with the Daily Mail on Monday.
Daniels first met Bartlett when they were both attending Northwestern University. He found her sitting at the back of the classroom reading a play.
“I’m very good at heavy stuff. So what happened was he listened, and he didn’t think these actors were very good, and he listened to me,” she told the outlet before Daniels shared her thoughts on the meeting.
“I looked over and there was a blonde woman in the back of the room, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. That looks interesting,'” the actor said.
He waited for the class to submit, worked up the courage to ask a question, and was met with a harsh response.
However, Bartlett, who was half an inch shorter than Daniels at the time, quickly overcame his fear of Daniels’ height.
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she insisted. “What I wanted to say was, ‘Oh, no, no, you’re too short. I’m too tall for you.’ And he said, ‘Oh, come on,’ and we’ve been together ever since.”
The way they talk about each other now, 75 years later, it’s hard to imagine they were on the wrong path to begin with.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be with anyone else in my life other than this woman sitting next to me,” Daniels, 99, exclaimed.
Mr Bartlett, 96, added: “It just happened.” “You don’t plan for it. You don’t really plan. I’m not a romantic or anything like that. I’m a big believer in today, you know? And all of a sudden it’s 75 years. I have to say it’s kind of amazing.”
“It’s surprising, especially in our business,” she said, referring to the number of divorces in Hollywood.
During the interview, the couple also revealed the rules of their “open marriage.”
“The funny thing is, the press will take something and make it bigger than it was before,” Bartlett prefaced. “We’ve never talked about what we’re going to do, but you two have been together for 75 years, and as you know, it would be unusual if you weren’t… attracted to other people from time to time.”
Ms. Bartlett added, “Yes, we both were on both sides at times,” which she wrote about in her 2023 memoir, “In the Middle of the Rainbow.”
However, they never openly discussed this arrangement. They each had their own issues until Bartlett realized that he “couldn’t stand an open marriage of any kind anymore.”
“Bill and I never sit down and make rules,” she said. “We never sit down and discuss these things. We just don’t. We just live our lives. And if he’s been away for a year, he’s been gone for a year.”
“Our lives went on, but they were never disturbed…We were never disturbed, but sometimes our lives went in different directions.”
The Little House on the Prairie alum previously revealed that the couple had an “open marriage” but it was “very painful” and “didn’t work out.”
“And that was a time when people were doing that,” she continued. “There was a lot of sex in New York at the time, and a lot of people were doing all kinds of things. It was very freeing.”
The two were married on June 30, 1951. During their married life, the two played each other’s spouses in three different productions, including “Boy Meets World” and “St. Elsewhere.”
Ten years into their marriage, their son William Jr. was born and died 24 hours later. They adopted two sons.
