Dolly Parton & Carl Thomas Dean
She's a superstar performer known around the world. He was a private man who stayed away from the spotlight. But before his passing in March 2025, they built a marriage that lasted more than 56 years. "I like it when people say, 'How did it last so long?'" Dolly told ET Canada in December 2022. "I say, 'It's stay going.' There's a lot to be said about that. So we're not in each other's face all the time. He's not in the business, so we have different interests, but yet we have the things we love to do together. So it was meant to be. He was the one I was supposed to have and vice versa."
Samuel L. Jackson & LaTanya Richardson Jackson
There's no breaking the bond of these college sweethearts. "In the beginning, we always said the most revolutionary thing that Black people could do was stay together, raise their children with the nucleus of having a father and a mother, since everybody likes to pretend that that's not the dynamic of the African American family," LaTanya told People in March 2022. "That it's just children out here being raised by women, which we know is false. In order to change that narrative, we made a decision to say, ‘We are going to stay together no matter what. We'll figure it out.'"
Bonnie Bartlett & William Daniels
When you find joy in life's daily activities, Bonnie says your marriage could last forever. "We're very happy," she told People when celebrating 72 years of marriage in January. "We sit in this house and we do things. He reads his New York Times and he does Cameos mostly. And we do conventions and things like that. We just like to be with each other. And we would do anything for each other."
Ron & Cheryl Howard
These high school sweethearts celebrated their 50th anniversary in November 2020. "There's no technique," Ron told People just one year earlier. "There's no tactic other than communication is really important. You have to learn to communicate and have difficult conversations in constructive ways."
Christopher & Georgianne Walken
After meeting during a production of West Side Story in the '60s, this couple continues to savor every moment together with gratitude. "Every once in a while, I'll be looking out the window, and I'll think, 'I feel pretty good,'" Christopher told New York Times Magazine in February 2022. "My bills are paid, my wife is healthy, the weather's nice. That's really all I care about: when, apropos of nothing, I happen to look out the window and think, 'This is good.'"
Alan & Arlene Alda
After 65 years of marriage, the couple has found their groove away from the spotlight in Long Island, New York. In an interview with The New Yorker, Alan said he and his wife enjoy playing chess during the day and ladder ball before dusk. Then, it's a nice dinner and a quality TV show. It's not noisy in the country," he said in June 2022. "I don't have to show up places. Places come to me."
Martin & Janet Sheen
Through sickness and in health! After Martin recovered from a heart attack and nervous breakdown in the late '70s, he recalled a few words his wife told him. "It was very serious, and she handled it like a pro," he told Closer Weekly in 2016. "She had me laughing in the most dire circumstances. She said, 'Don't take yourself so seriously.' Every day is a celebration with this dame."
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner
After meeting in 1971, Lily and Jane have been inseparable. When asked to share advice for other couples, Lily kept it simple. "We all have a secret," Lily told reporters in 2019. "It's just the secret is that you're committed and care and you want it to work out. You don't want to walk away from something that's important."