Hollywood’s longest-married couple are weeks away from their 75th anniversary.

Bonnie Bartlett shares secret to relationships after revealing open marriage with William Daniels: ‘Wiggle room’

Hollywood’s longest-married couple are weeks away from their 75th anniversary.

By Kathleen Perricone

May 22, 2026 3:30 p.m. ET

William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett. Credit:

Bill Daniels/Instagram

- Bonnie Bartlett shares one of the secrets to her 75-year marriage to William Daniels: “wiggle room.”

- “Certainly a marriage is full of adjustments,” says the *St. Elsewhere* actress in a new interview.

- The couple also share how they plan to celebrate their upcoming silver wedding anniversary, 10 days after Bartlett's 97th birthday.

What’s the secret to 75 years of wedded bliss? “Wiggle room” within the marriage, says Bonnie Bartlett, wife of *Boy Meets World* star William Daniels.

Hollywood’s longest-married couple has been remarkably candid about their relationship, recently dishing the details about their “open marriage.”

The *St. Elsewhere* actress admitted to a months-long affair with a “boring” costar in 1958, seven years after their wedding. Bartlett, 96, also revealed her 99-year-old husband strayed with a producer in the 1970s.

Daniels and Bartlett in 1989.

Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty

In their latest joint interview, the two look back at their 78 years together, after meeting in 1948 as students at Northwestern University in Illinois.

“Life’s all about adjusting to whatever your circumstances are,” Bartlett explained to *Page Six*. “Certainly a marriage is full of adjustments.” And it’s important to continually adapt with the ebb and flow of a marriage by allowing “wiggle room.”

Bartlett previously admitted to the *Daily Mail* that she and Daniels had "a little bit of an open marriage" after saying "I do" in 1951. "So there have been times, yeah, both of us, on both sides," she confessed. "We never got unhinged, but our lives did go in different directions occasionally."

Inside William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett's relationship: How their 'open' marriage evolved into Hollywood's longest union

'Boy Meets World' star's wife recalls affair with 'boring' actor amid open marriage: 'The sex was good'

These days, it's the little things that keep them together. Bartlett, who turns 97 on June 20, says her husband has her laughing “all the time, every day.”

Despite being in the same business — the two played love interests in three major television series — the Emmy-winning actors are quite opposite in personalities. While Bartlett describes herself as “introspective,” her Billy “is just there for the humor and the pun,” she explained.

Case in point: whenever he’s asked for marriage advice, Daniels quips, “Don’t.”

Bartlett and Daniels at home.

Bill Daniels/Instagram

Bartlett and Daniels, who also make personalized Cameo videos for fans, will be celebrating their silver wedding anniversary on June 30, and they’re hoping to keep it a low-key affair at home with their family.

These days, explained the actress, it’s easier to “have people come to us. It’s very hard to move him around in a big restaurant or something to party. That’s tough for him. So we’ll have people come visit us.”

Two special guests will be their sons, Michael and Robert, whom the couple adopted after the tragic death of their newborn William Jr. in 1961.

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“We’re so lucky we have two wonderful, wonderful sons,” Bartlett gushed to *Page Six*. “And one of them — Michael — lives right near us, and he helps us a lot. A lot. And he has a family, and we see them. We see him and his wife, and we see all the kids, and it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.”

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Source: “EW Celebrity”