As everyone already knows, a huge percentage of marriages that involve everyday people end in divorce. When it comes to celebrity couples, it often feels like even more of them wind up going their separate ways since their splits get covered by the media. With all of that in mind, it seems incredible that some celebrity couples wind up going the distance.
When it comes to celebrities who’ve been married for a very long time, most people tend to think of people like Tom Hanks, Kelly Ripa, Will Smith, and Ellen DeGeneres. However, there is another beloved actor who deserves to be considered on that list, John Goodman, as he has been married to Anna Elizabeth Hartzog since 1989.
One of those rare celebrities who has managed to avoid the glare of the public eye in a lot of ways, John Goodman’s personal life has largely been ignored by the media. While it seems certain that Goodman likely is very happy about that fact, it is unfortunate in one way. After all, it means that most of Goodman’s fans are unaware of how loving his marriage seems to be from all indications.
Relationship Beginnings
These days, many people consider John Goodman to be one of the best actors of his generation, even though he has never won an Oscar. Back in 1988, however, John Goodman’s most famous character to date was just debuting on television, Roseanne’s Dan Conner. That same year, a movie he starred in called Everybody's All-American was released to the theaters. While that film has been largely forgotten in the years since it seems very clear that Goodman thanks his lucky stars that he appeared in the film.
While speaking to Elle Magazine about his life and marriage, John Goodman revealed that he met his wife Anna Elizabeth Hartzog at a Halloween party. In New Orleans at the time, as he was there to film Everybody's All-American, Goodman was instantly taken when his future wife approached him out of the blue and said “Hi”. In fact, he told Elle that he “couldn't figure out why anyone that pretty was talking to me”.
During that same Elle interview, John Goodman revealed that he wasn’t exactly a ladies man when he was asked about how successful he was with women in high school. “I was just looking for attention all the time. I had a crush on one girl. She was out of my range—I knew I could never go with her. I just kept going into self-pity. I was really good at that.” Given that history, it makes all the sense in the world that he was so amazed to be approached by a beautiful young woman.
Years Together
After moving to the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York during the 1970s, John Goodman obviously wanted to be near one of the epicenters of the acting world at that time. Once Anna Elizabeth Hartzog entered his life, however, Goodman’s priorities seemed to instantly change.
After John Goodman met and fell in love with a woman from New Orleans, he moved there and the couple brought up their daughter Molly in the Big Easy. Dedicated to one another ever since the always funny Goodman attributed his marriages’ years of success to his “working away from home a great deal of the time” during an Elle interview.
Major Issue
Whenever John Goodman is asked about his wife Anna Elizabeth Hartzog, he always makes it very clear that he absolutely adores her. However, the two of them are human beings just like the rest of us so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Goodman and Hartzog have dealt with some serious issues during their time together. In fact, the two of them had to tackle his addiction problems, which is something that a lot of other celebrities have struggled with as well.
One of those rare celebrities that has proven to be very open about his shortcomings over the years, during a 2018 Today interview he spoke at length about his past drinking problem. Revealing that things had gone so far that he “was drinking at work”, at that time Goodman thought he was getting away with it even though his “speech would be slurred”. Eventually confronted about his issue by his longtime co-star and friend, Roseanne Barr, Goodman has said she was “scared” for him.
Of course, as the case with most addicts, Goodman wasn’t able to kick his habit until he came to his own decision that he needed to seek help. At Goodman’s time of need, there was one person in the world he chose to turn to, the love of his life, Anna Elizabeth Hartzog. During the aforementioned Today interview, Goodman joked that telling his wife how bad things had gotten was “like turning myself into the Gestapo”. No matter how upsetting admitting his problem to Hartzog was, she has stood by him ever since and she was the one that “made some phone calls” and got him “into a treatment center”.