Ted Danson refuses to stop working at 76, cashes in on retirement comedy
Ted Danson is set to receive the Carol Burnett Award at the upcoming Golden Globes, but has no plans to retire as he stars in a new series, "A Man on the Inside."
Ted Danson’s 50-year career in Hollywood is not slowing down anytime soon.
The "Cheers" star is set to receive the Carol Burnett Award at next month’s Golden Globes, honoring his "outstanding contributions to television on or off screen."
The 76-year-old is also starring in a new Netflix series, "A Man on the Inside." Danson plays a retired professor who lost his wife and, as a hobby, begins assisting a private investigator by going undercover at a retirement home.
"My favorite kind of comedy has serious overtones, and in this case, it's a very funny premise," he told People magazine of the series.
"A Man on the Inside" is based on a real-life story, chronicled in the 2020 documentary "The Mole Agent."
"There's something inherently funny about a 76-year-old man who is a [retired] college professor, his life shut down, his daughter's worried, so she says, 'Get a project,' and he happens to whimsically find a project where he becomes an undercover spy in a retirement home," Danson told the outlet.
He continued, "We get to explore aging, all those things that, in this country, sometimes we're afraid to talk about, memory loss, everything, we broach with a tenderness and a seriousness still contained in a kind of light-hearted, joyful way."
"I'm so happy because I'm 76 and I get to be part of this conversation, which is becoming more and more of my conversation in life," he said.
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Danson made his TV debut in 1975 on the soap opera "Somerset" and made one-off appearances in several series like "Laverne & Shirley," "Magnum P.I." and "Taxi" before landing his breakout role on "Cheers."
"Cheers" launched Danson to stardom, playing bar owner Sam Malone across 275 episodes from 1982 to 1993.
Danson continued in film and TV, starring on the sitcom "Becker" and later "CSI" and a season of "Fargo," as well as guest starring in episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as a fictionalized version of himself.
In 2016, Danson starred on the NBC sitcom "The Good Place," earning him rave reviews and three Emmy nominations.
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The actor has headlined a multitude of series in his career, and with his latest, he’s finding special meaning in the story.
"I’m a silly man who remains youthful by being silly. So will this fit with my age and what we think of when we think of retirement homes?" he told the Los Angeles Times when he was considering the role.
He continued, "I have said to myself in the last two to three years, ‘I want to keep working for as long as I physically can because I want to know what it’s like to try to be funny at every age.’ I want to keep discovering that. I don’t want to be younger or hold onto who I was before. I want to age and to celebrate aging and celebrate aging with humor."
Danson admitted he had considered finding "a landing spot" when he turned 70 in 2017, the middle of his run on "The Good Place," adding that he thought, "I need to slow down and take care."
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But it was actually his wife Mary Steenburgen’s "Book Club" co-star Jane Fonda who inspired him to keep working.
"I met Jane, and she had her foot on the gas pedal at 80. She was 80 when I was turning 70. And she would do a full day of shooting on ‘Grace and Frankie’ and then get on a bus and go with some women to do something for the service industry in Sacramento. She was nonstop. And I thought, ‘Oh, right. Don’t slow down. Cross the finish line with force.’ Why plan for diminishment? We tell our kids they could grow up and be anything they want. But we stop saying that to ourselves at a certain age," Danson explained.
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Danson and Steenburgen met when they were both older, in their 40s, and each had already been married and had children.
"I was not really fully emotionally baked until shortly before I met Mary," Danson told People in a recent interview.
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They first met in 1983 during an audition and were friends until their relationship deepened in the early '90s, especially after they worked together in 1994’s "Pontiac Moon."
"I had, about a year before, decided I want to become a more emotionally mature, honest human being," he recalled. "I worked very hard at it or I don't think Mary Steenburgen would've even seen me. So yeah. The answer is no. Thank God we didn't meet earlier," he told the outlet when asked if he wished they had met sooner.
In a 2019 interview with Closer Weekly, Danson explained, "We found each other when I was 45 and she was 40. We had lived a bit. Both of us stared down some demons within ourselves, and it was lucky that we met then."
Danson and Steenburgen tied the knot in 1995, and share four children between them — Danson’s daughters, Kate and Alexis, and Steenburgen’s children with ex-husband Malcolm MacDowell, Lily and Charlie.
Both are now in their 70s, and Danson joked that they prefer "early bird" specials to late-night dates.
"Date nights are kind of, at my age, date early bird specials," he told People.
"The most fun is the early mornings, 4:30 in the morning, coffee in bed, playing Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee, talking and laughing and sharing," he continued. "To both of us, it's like heaven on Earth."
Danson and Steenburgen are both continuing to work, and Danson in particular is keen on encouraging older people, himself included, to not slow down.
"For us people, my age and older, you still have something to contribute hugely," he told People. "So get out there and keep going, and the way you engage life right up until the end is an inspiration to those younger people behind that are coming up and your children. Because a lot of times people think there's a shelf life to creativity and contributing to life. There isn't. That's self-imposed."
As he told the Times, "Keep your foot on the gas pedal. Live! This is your life until it ain’t. Go for it."
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