Meryl Streep and Don Gummer Marriage Profile

Considered one of the more successful marriages in show business, the long lasting marriage of Meryl Streep and Don Gummer appears to continue to grow stronger. Here is information about their marriage, children, and quotes.

Meryl Streep aka Mary Louise Streep: June 22, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey.

Don Gummer: December 12, 1946 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Meryl met Don through her brother, Harry. Harry and Don had been longtime friends.

Meryl and Don had a quiet wedding on September 15, 1978 at the home of her parents on Mason's Island, Connecticut.

They later celebrated their marriage with friends in May, 1979 at a cocktail party. Meryl wears a simple, slim wedding band.

Meryl and Don have four children.

• Henry (Hank, Harry) W. Gummer: Born in 1979. Working as an actor, filmmaker, and in a rock band, Bravo Silva.
• Mary (Mamie) Willa Gummer: Born in 1983. Working as an actress.
• Grace Jane Gummer: Born in 1986. Studying art and religion at Vassar College.
• Louisa Jacobson Gummer: Born in 1991.

Meryl: Actress and producer.

Don: Sculptor.

Meryl was engaged to John Cazale, an actor. John was born on August 12, 1935 in Boston, Massachusetts. Meryl and John met in New York in 1976 while working together on a Central Park production of Measure for Measure. They became engaged while working together on the film The Deer Hunter. They learned in the summer of 1977 that John had bone cancer. He died on March 12, 1978 in New York, New York.

"Meryl took a leave from acting to care for Cazale full time. During his last few weeks she moved into the hospital; every day she read him the sports pages, comically imitating the overheated delivery of TV announcers and trying to nourish his spirits until the end."
Source: Time.com

Although at different times in their marriage, Meryl and Don had homes in New York and California, their primary residence throughout their marriage has been in Connecticut.

Meryl about the secret to a long-lived marriage: "Goodwill and willingness to bend—and to shut up every once in a while. There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always an enormous negotiation. But I have a holistic need to work and to have huge ties of love in my life. I can't imagine eschewing one for the other."
Source: MerylStreepOnline.net

Meryl about finding the right mate: "My husband understands the compulsion to create things. With somebody who had a regular job, I think it might have been harder to translate those creative impulses and the need to satisfy them ... I think you have to have somebody as a partner who shares what you value in life."
Source: Parade Magazine, May 28, 2006.

Meryl about balance in marriage: "I'm not sure we think about it as compromising as much as it is trying to keep a certain balance in the relationship. We're lucky to have found each other, and we both recognize that. Our marriage and our four children and their future well-being inform all the decisions we make. Of course, we're fortunate that our lives are flexible enough to accommodate everybody's changing needs."
Source: Good Housekeeping Magazine, January 2003.

Meryl about her husband Don: "I don't know what I'd do without my husband. I'd be dead, emotionally at least, if I hadn't met him. He's the greatest."
Source: Good Housekeeping Magazine, January 2003.

Meryl about listening: Listening is everything. Listening is the whole deal. That's what I think. And I mean that in terms of before you work, after you work, in between work, with your children, with your husband, with your friends, with your mother, with your father. It's everything. And it's where you learn everything."
Source: MerylStreepOnline.net

Meryl about what is important, learned after John's death: "I learned what really is important. I found what is true and what’s just stupid and meaningless and not worth pursuing.”
Source: MyTravelMag.com