Tom Selleck And His Wife Jillie Have Been Together For Over Three Decades

Dec 02, 2020 by apost team

It has been three decades since Tom Selleck and his wife Jillie Joan Mack were married, and the two have kept a low profile ever since, living on a private ranch in Ventura, CA. Selleck attributes their successful marriage to the privacy they keep and breaks from work here and there. Read on to find out about their decades-long love story.

The pair met decades ago in London when Selleck was filming his movie Lassiter and attended the West End show Cats repeatedly.

“He kept telling me how great Cats was,” his movie co-star at the time, Jane Seymour, said to People. “I thought it was good, but I couldn’t see going back a dozen times.” 

It turns out that Selleck had an ulterior motive: He wanted to meet the 25-year-old Jillie Joan Mack who was in the company. Her London agent confirmed that the two went out for dinner and things transpired from there, according to People.

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A People article from 1987 details how Selleck and Mack were married in a secret ceremony by a priest who didn’t even know he was marrying someone until moments before the event. The location of the wedding took place at the Dream Maker in Lake Tahoe, an open-all-hours wedding chapel. The wedding had been planned by Selleck's brother Bob using pseudonyms for the couple, so as to avoid alerting the press, and was attended by Selleck's parents and brothers. 

Some news of the ceremony eventually leaked in the People article, revealing that they chose to have Polaroid pictures taken of their special day, again to ensure privacy in case pictures from film negatives would be leaked. Reverend Immel from the chapel told the magazine:

“They were both nervous, like any other couple about to get married. He was very concerned that the service be heartfelt, very concerned for her that the service be meaningful. He is a very warm, caring man.”

The low-key wedding sounds like the perfect antithesis to a very public Hollywood acting career and was the beginning of their quiet marital life together.

A year later, the two had a little daughter and moved to a ranch in California where they all live to this day, Country Living reports. Selleck quit his job on the hit show Magnum P.I. and put his career on hold to be with his family.

“It’s important to nurture your marriage,” he told People. “I think wanting time away from work has been good for that.”

Just this year, Selleck spoke to People in a new interview, once again opening up about his desire for a private family life and what motivated him. He said:

“I’m a fairly private person. And I’ve always treasured the balance between work and time with my family. It’s always about them.” 

He went on to discuss his family's ranch, saying that it keeps him "sane." He also made clear that he puts in work into the ranch, stating:

“I do grunt work and I make the rounds. I like watching things grow. It’s a retreat.”

The ranch was also a grounded way to raise their daughter Hannah, who is now a professional equestrian. In 2015, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Hannah Selleck would begin a breeding business with her famous dad—that's the kind of close family bonding about a shared passion that certainly wouldn't have been possible in LA.

Over time, Tom Selleck's choice to step out of the spotlight in lieu of a slower lifestyle at the ranch with his family has proven itself to be exactly what the actor wanted for his life. In the interview with People from this year, he recounted exactly how he realized this was the lifestyle for him:

“I knew intellectually what it would mean in terms of being a public person, but until you’ve lived it, there’s no way to understand it. I had a feeling of, 'I don’t think I’m cut out for this.'"

And for fans of his hit series Magnum P.I., he explains why he left:

"I quit Magnum, not because I didn’t like it or I was tired of it. I was tired from it. And I wanted a three-dimensional life because I didn’t have one.”

Selleck's career and life choices certainly seem to have made him a happy and content man, and that's a wonderful thing to see. He added:

“I’m proud of my work, I still love what I do, and I have my family. I’ve been enormously fortunate.”

Did you know about Tom Selleck's desire for a quiet life out of the spotlight? Do you know a married couple who has been together this long? Let us know and tell them about the secret to Selleck and Mack's long marriage.