Ted Danson Looks Back on Tense Encounter With Bill Clinton While Dating Mary Steenburgen

During the start of his relationship with Mary Steenburgen, Cheers star Ted Danson remembers former president Bill Clinton stepping in. The actor looks back at how Clinton used the Secret Service to intimidate him.

Danson moderated a panel with Bill and Hillary Clinton at History Talks in Philadelphia over the weekend. The 78-year-old actor remembers how Steenburgen used her connections and close friendship with the Clintons to try to spook him. It was also a ploy to figure out Danson's true intentions with the actor.

"One of the first things she did was take me to meet her dear friends in the White House," Danson said. "Bill - Mr. President - took me around the corner, and there were three Secret Service agents behind him, all of them looking at me. The president asked me what my intentions were."

A perfectly valid question by any close friend as someone they cherish begins dating someone new. The two actors met in 1993 while working on the film Pontiac Man, as Danson played a "pigheaded" science teacher and Steenburgen happened to have starred as his on-screen wife.

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It may be that both Steenburgen and Clinton wanted to make sure Danson was a good guy, seeing as he had a few high-profile relationships before tying the knot with the actor. He first married Randall "Randy" Gosch in 1970 and later divorced in 1975. In 1977, Danson married producer Cassandra "Casey" Coates and had an affair with Whoopi Goldberg in 1992 that contributed to their divorce.

During the panel, Danson jokingly asked Clinton if it "was fair" to have been asked what his intentions were all those years ago, especially with Secret Service as backup.

"No, but it was effective," Clinton replied. "And I didn't think I had to be fair. As it turned out, you became the best thing that ever happened to her."

Danson and Steenburgen got married a few years later in October 1995, with the Cheers actor becoming a stepfather to her two children from her previous marriage to Malcolm McDowell. The actor once commented he proposed to Steenburgen after realizing he "couldn't imagine not being with her at all times."

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This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 10:32 AM.