Here’s a story that proves it’s never too late to find love again. Steve Lopez, a fab reporter at The LA Times, found a sweet story that made us smile.
Anthony “Tony” Lawrence, 87, lives at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Retirement Home in Woodland Hills, Ca. He was a television writer who wrote for a bunch of shows in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s including Bonanza, Ben Casey, Hawaii Five-O, and The Outer Limits. After his wife of 50 years died, he tried online dating. But it didn’t work for him. “What do you do?” he rhetorically asked Lopez.
One day, Lawrence saw Madeleine “Madi” Smith pushing a stroller. He wondered why she was pushing a stroller. He asked one of the home’s caregivers, Amelia, who told him that Madi was pushing around a rescue dog, and that he ought to get to know her because he would like her.
Lawrence saw her again coming out of her cottage but didn’t know what to say to her. Then one day Madi appeared in the cafeteria. “I’m drinking my coffee and I look over and see Madi at a different table and I thought ‘Should I do it? I looked at her a couple of times and thought ‘She’s a very attractive woman. And she’s alone.”
“I finally got up the nerve. I picked up my coffee and went over to her table. I paused for a moment and said ‘Amelia said you’re a very interesting person, and I should get to know you. So here I am.”
According to Lopez “Madi was a child actress and then a dancer. In her late teens she switched to production and personal assistant jobs, working for Bobby Darin, the Smothers Brothers, Henry Mancini, and Norman Lear.”
But Madi was hesitant about getting involved. Until one day Lawrence decided to go for it and marched over to her cottage with a bouquet of flowers. “It was risky and old fashioned, but I thought ‘What the hell?”
The couple was married in the Roddy McDowall garden “and they are the first two residents to meet and marry in the 75-year history of the retirement home,” says Lopez.
Lawrence says of his new bride, “She’s a 75-year-old going on 30. Love is timeless and love can happen at any moment in one’s life.”
“When you least expect it,” says his wife.
Check out the full story here.
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