Boy Meets World star William Daniels and wife Bonnie Bartlett are nearing their 75th wedding anniversary, revealing the secret to their lasting relationship comes with being able to “adjust.”
Bartlett, who wrote in her 2023 memoir, Middle of the Rainbow, that she and Daniels briefly had an “open marriage” after exchanging their vows in June 1951, said their connection has grown stronger over the years.
“Well, we’ve been together, actually, 78 years because it was three years in college. We met at Northwestern [University]. Right, Bill?” Bartlett, 96, told Page Six on Thursday, May 21, while sitting beside her spouse, 99. “And so we’ve really been together a long time.”
Bartlett noted, “Life is all adjustment,” explaining that her and Daniels’ relationship has followed that same motto.
“It suddenly got hot here [in Los Angeles], and it got hard to breathe and to move around. You have to kind of adjust to the heat. And that’s what life’s all about,” Bartlett explained. “Is adjusting to whatever your circumstances are and however you move along. And certainly a marriage is full of adjustments.”
The Little House on the Prairie actress admitted that there has to be some “wiggle room” in a marriage in order for it to survive — whether you’re a Hollywood couple or not.
Ultimately, Daniels’ humor and Bartlett’s ability to be more “introspective” has led to a long and happy life for the pair, who share two sons, Michael, 62, and Robert, 60. (The pair’s first child, William Daniels Jr., died 24 hours after he was born.)
“We work together. We live together,” Bartlett said of her relationship. “There’s nobody else that we want to live with. We know how to live with each other. We always have.”
Bonnie Bartlett, William Daniels. Bill Reitzel/TV Guide/ABC/Everett Collection
Daniels, meanwhile, joked that when people ask him for “marriage advice,” he replies, “Don’t.”
The St. Elsewhere alum didn’t clarify whether he meant “don’t get married” or “don’t ask him for advice,” but the blunt response caused Bartlett to chuckle.
“He just likes to make me laugh,” Bartlett said, noting that her husband is “not introspective.”
According to the actress, Daniels makes her laugh “every day” and is “there for the humor and fun” no matter what the situation.
The couple’s talk of marriage comes after Bartlett made headlines in January 2023 when she revealed they had an open marriage in the early 1950s.
“That didn’t work well,” she recalled to Fox News Digital of her and Daniels’ brief romantic entanglement. “And it was a time when people were doing that. It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know — very free.”
Bartlett revealed in her 2023 memoir, Middle of the Rainbow, that she had “an affair that lasted a few months” with an actor who was “slightly boring.” She also wrote that Daniels had an affair with a producer in New York but they both eventually “grew up” and recommitted to one another fully.
Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels on ‘Boy Meets World.’ Touchstone Television/Everett Collection
“Bill and I have moved forward day-by-day and eventually, the days added up,” she wrote in her book. “We’ve been happy together and sad together, and somehow stayed together for seven decades.”
Bartlett expanded on that timeframe in her and Daniels’ relationship earlier this month, telling the Daily Mail that her “open marriage” comments were taken to be “more” than it actually was.
“There was never any discussion as to what we were going to do, but in 75 years, the two of you together, you know, it would be abnormal if you … weren’t attracted occasionally to other people,” she told the outlet on Monday, May 18.
Bartlett shared that she and Daniels had a “non-spoken” agreement back in the day, but there was never a “sit down” to “make rules.”
“We never sit down and talk about these things. We just don’t. We just live our lives. And if he’s away for a year, he’s away for a year,” she recalled. “Our lives just went on, but we never got unhinged. … But our lives did go in different directions occasionally.”
While many people are fascinated by Bartlett and Daniels’ past sexual exploits, the actress is more focused on how people remember her husband as he continues to age.
“Even now when he’s forgotten so many things, I haven’t forgotten them,” Bartlett told Page Six, looking sweetly over to her husband, adding that fans want to hear about his life after playing the beloved Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World from 1993 to 2000, and she is more than willing to oblige.
While Daniels didn’t respond to her remark, Bartlett revealed that he is “happy” with their lives as they near their anniversary milestone.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.usmagazine.com ’
