Marion Ross turned 98 today, October 25, 2026. Millions of viewers still know her as Mrs. C, the steady mom who kept the Cunningham house running on Happy Days from 1974 to 1984. Her own life took far longer to settle into a happy rhythm. Ross was 60 years old before she met the man she would spend the next 23 years with.
That late romance eventually inspired a Tony Award winner to write something just for the two of them. First, it helps to know how far she had come.
How Did Marion Ross Become Mrs. C?
Ross was born on October 25, 1928, in Watertown, Minnesota. At 13, she changed the spelling of her first name from Marian to Marion because she thought it would look better on theater programs and marquees. She worked steadily in 1950s films, with small parts in Sabrina, The Glenn Miller Story and Operation Petticoat.
Her private life was harder. She married Freeman Meskimen in 1951, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1969. “I was divorced. I had two children to raise,” she told Smashing Interviews in 2018. Both of those children later followed her into the business, as DYR explored in our look at Marion Ross’ children.
When Happy Days came along, nobody treated the mother as a big role. “They just said that the mother was such an insignificant part, so they said, ‘You’re good for the mother,'” Ross told Smashing Interviews. The part grew anyway. Ross earned Emmy nominations for Happy Days in 1979 and 1984. Love, though, was still years away.
Who Was Paul Michael?
Paul Michael was a Broadway man. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 15, 1926, he was a World War II Army veteran. According to Playbill, he appeared in 14 Broadway productions, starting with Bells Are Ringing in 1956. He also played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof for about 1,000 performances on tour. TV fans may remember him as King Johnny Romano on Dark Shadows.
The two met in 1988 when they were cast in the same small stage show in Los Angeles. Ross described the moment to The Los Angeles Beat. “We were in a play together,” she said. “It was called A Whole Half. It was a silly little play.”
She admitted she did not see him as a romantic lead at first. “I was 60 when I met him,” she told the outlet. “He was 62 but I thought he was much older.” She also explained why she was open to love at that point in her life. “I cannot go on anymore alone. I cannot do this anymore,” she recalled thinking.
Her son, actor Jim Meskimen, later put it more simply. According to 50 Plus World, he wrote that the couple “met on a play in Los Angeles and instantly fell in love.” The question fans still ask is what came next.
Did Marion Ross And Paul Michael Ever Marry?
The answer depends on the source. In 2010, Playbill called Michael her “longtime partner,” and Variety described the pair as “real life partners.” Profiles in 50 Plus World and BusinessLife say the couple never formally married. Wikipedia and The List call him her second husband. Every account agrees on the length of their bond. They were together for 23 years.
They made their home on Ross’s farm in the San Fernando Valley, which she named Happy Days Farm. According to The List, the couple often used the property for rehearsals and special occasions.
Ross kept working through those years. In the early 1990s she starred as a Polish Jewish grandmother on Brooklyn Bridge, a CBS series set in 1950s Brooklyn. She earned Emmy nominations for the role in 1992 and 1993. “I was very proud of that work,” she told Smashing Interviews. She later earned a fifth Emmy nod for Touched by an Angel in 1999.
Michael often worked right beside her. The two co-starred onstage in Joe DiPietro’s comedy Over the River and Through the Woods. They also shared dinners with the playwright in New York. Those dinners led to the most remarkable chapter of their story.
The Play A Tony Winner Wrote About Their Love
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DiPietro, who won Tony Awards for the musical Memphis, had gotten to know the couple well. He wrote a new romantic comedy for them called The Last Romance. Ross told the La Jolla Light in 2010 that the story was based on them a little. She said DiPietro handed the script to Michael on his birthday with the words, “Here’s your play.”
The plot followed an 80-year-old widower who changes his daily walk and finds an unexpected second chance at love. Playbill reported that it opened at The Old Globe in San Diego on August 5, 2010. The run was extended through September 12.
According to a TheaterMania review roundup, Variety wrote that the play cast “a bewitching spell in the hands of real life partners Marion Ross and Paul Michael.” The North County Times said the two were “so clearly in love after 22 years together.”
It turned out to be their last big project together. Michael died of heart failure on July 8, 2011, at home in Woodland Hills, California. He was 84. Variety reported his death, and the Albert Lea Tribune in Minnesota listed Ross among his survivors. Ross stepped away from acting briefly to grieve and then went back to work.
Her 2018 memoir, My Days: Happy and Otherwise, written with David Laurell, returns to that romance. Its publisher, Kensington, calls finding a soulmate among the book’s “most heart-rending recollections.” She has not faced the years since alone, either. Ross told The Los Angeles Beat that Henry Winkler checks on her. “He calls me very, very often,” she said. Winkler marked her 97th birthday last year by calling her “a magnificent woman, artist and friend,” as DYR reported at the time.
