Robert Wagner and Jill St. John have been married for 36 years, and at 96, the Hart to Hart star was recently asked what has kept them together so long. His answer, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly published Sunday, October 18, came down to one simple idea, and he applied it to his wife by name.
Their love story began long before the wedding, though. It started on a Hollywood studio lot almost 70 years ago, and it took a tragedy and a kind gesture to finally bring them together.
How Did Two Young Fox Actors End Up Together Decades Later?
According to Entertainment Weekly and Wikipedia, Wagner and St. John first met in the late 1950s, when both were young contract players at 20th Century Fox. They later co-starred in the 1967 film Banning, but romance would have to wait more than 20 years.
In the meantime, Wagner’s life took other turns. He married Natalie Wood in December 1957, and they divorced in 1962. A year later he married actress Marion Marshall, and their daughter Katie was born in May 1964 before that marriage ended in 1971. In 1972 he remarried Wood, their daughter Courtney arrived in 1974, and Wagner also helped raise Natasha, Wood’s daughter with Richard Gregson.
Then came the loss that changed his life. On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood died in the waters off Catalina Island at the age of 43, and soon afterward an old friend from the Fox lot reached out to him.
What Happened After Jill St. John Sent Flowers?
According to Fox News, citing a 1982 People report, St. John sent Wagner flowers and a note of condolence. About two months later the two crossed paths again at a dinner party, and their first date fell on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1982, as both Entertainment Weekly and Wikipedia report.
Those who knew them could see it right away. “R.J. just started calling. They started dating and have been ever since. She’s really in love,” St. John’s friend and business partner Jayne Smith told People at the time, as Fox News recalled.
Still, they took their time making it official. Eight years passed before Wagner and St. John married on May 26, 1990, according to Wikipedia and TCM, and as Entertainment Weekly and Fox News both note, it was the fourth marriage for each of them.
Years later, that first dinner still mattered to them. During a 2010 appearance on the YouTube cooking show Cooking with Anton Uhl, St. John said of Valentine’s Day, “It’s the anniversary of our first date, which is decades ago, but it worked,” according to Fox News.
The couple built a vacation home in Aspen, Colorado, in 1995, and in 2007 they sold the Brentwood house and made Aspen their full-time home, according to Wikipedia. Fox News reports they spend most of their time there today, with occasional trips to Los Angeles. You can see some of their rarely shared photos from that mountain life in our look at Robert Wagner and Jill St. John’s 35th anniversary.
Long before she settled in the mountains, St. John had a film career of her own, including a turn opposite James Bond.
Who Was Jill St. John Before She Became Mrs. Wagner?
She was born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles on August 19, 1940, according to Wikipedia and the James Bond site MI6-HQ, which makes her 86 today. Both sources also report that her IQ once tested at 162. By 1959 she was already appearing in films such as Holiday for Lovers.
Her most famous role came in 1971, when she played diamond smuggler Tiffany Case opposite Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever. Wikipedia and TV Insider both describe her as the first American Bond girl. In a twist of fate, one of her co-stars in that film was Lana Wood, Natalie Wood’s younger sister.
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In the 1980s she found a second calling in the kitchen. She became a regular guest chef on Good Morning America and wrote a food column for USA Weekend, and in 1987 Random House published The Jill St. John Cookbook. She and Wagner shared the screen again in later years, too, and their final pairing was Northpole in 2014, where they played Mr. and Mrs. Claus, according to Entertainment Weekly and Parade.
Wagner, of course, spent 1979 to 1984 as Jonathan Hart on ABC’s Hart to Hart, and a whole new generation came to know him as Number Two in all three Austin Powers films, the last of which was released in 2002. When Entertainment Weekly asked whether he would return for another, he did not hesitate. “Absolutely. I have the patch.”
It was in that same interview that Wagner finally put into words what has kept his marriage going for more than three decades.
What Is Robert Wagner’s Secret To 36 Years With Jill St. John?
His answer kept circling back to one word. “Being interested in life and in your relationship,” Wagner told Entertainment Weekly, and then he turned to his wife. “I mean, I find Jill very interesting, a very interesting person. I think interest is important in a relationship.”
It is not the first time he has praised her in public. At his 94th birthday party in February 2024, Wagner raised a toast to St. John in a video he shared online. “I wouldn’t be here without you,” he told her, as Fox News reported.
The family they built together comes up often, too. In a birthday message to Natasha that Entertainment Weekly cited, Wagner wrote, “Jill and I are so proud of the woman you are and the joy, laughter, and love you bring into our lives.”
He often marks his wife’s birthday with a public note, and this August, as she turned 86, he did it again with a loving tribute to Jill St. John. This coming Valentine’s Day will mark 45 years since their first date. At 96, Wagner says the woman he took to dinner in 1982 still holds his interest, and after all this time, that may be the most romantic thing he could say.