A Beautiful Story

Jeff Bridges (the actor) has been married to his wife, Susan since 1977.  A quick tally will yield you an answer of 37 years of marriage this year—in June if you wish to be exact.  Such a long term union is an extreme rarity for a Hollywood actor, something akin to a “snow day” in Las Vegas.

Jeff met his wife to be, Susan Geston, in 1974 while filming Rancho Deluxe in Montana’s Paradise Valley.  Susan was working as a waitress where Jeff was staying.  Following are Jeff’s own words from a story he wrote in 2006 for Reader’s Digest:

Susan, who was from Fargo, North Dakota, the daughter of a professional couple (an architect and a university professor), was waitressing at the time. She was doing whatever needed to be done at the ranch, and I noticed her right away. Not only was she beautiful, she had a broken nose and two black eyes. I had this fantasy that she’d been beaten up by a boyfriend and that I was going to save her. Actually she had been in a car accident a few days earlier. I did what lots of guys do when they see a girl but don’t want her to see them: I held up a magazine, looked over the edge, and then ducked back behind it when she walked by. It took me all day to finally get up the nerve to ask her out. And she said no.

Just then the makeup man on the film snapped a photo of the two of us. About 15 years ago the guy sent it to me, saying, “Here you are asking a local girl for a date.” He didn’t know that that “local girl” became my wife. I still carry that photo around today. It’s one of my most prized possessions.

After she turned me down, I ran into Sue again at the film’s wrap party, and I asked her to dance. We danced together, and then I asked her to go look at some property with me. We drove to Yellowstone Ranch, and as I was looking at the land and looking back at Sue, I started thinking that I was looking at my wife-to-be. She was so relaxed and easy to be with. She had a fun attitude, and I had a feeling of being at home —a soothing feeling of being where I belonged.

Jeff returned to California shortly after meeting Susan, but could not put her out of his mind.  To assure he did not lose Susan, Jeff and a friend rented a motor home in California and drove all the way back to Montana to “kidnap” her.  Jeff talked Susan into returning to California with him.  Jeff and Susan dated and lived together for most of the time between 1974 the day they wed in 1977.  Both Jeff and Susan make claim to falling a little more in love with one another as each year passes.  They produced three daughters and still spend a great deal of each year at a ranch they purchased here in Montana, the state they consider their home state.  Only a week ago I read an article about Jeff visiting a YMCA in Billings, Montana with Steve Bullock, our current Governor.  Jeff is the national spokesperson for the No Kid Hungry Campaign and often visits schools and other locations to promote the campaign, which seeks to end childhood hunger.

They are good citizens, Jeff Bridges and Susan Bridges.  And they have nurtured a kind of big love that is loud in its beauty.

--Mitchell Hegman