Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest's Relationship: All About Their 40-Year Marriage

Mar. 15, 2025

Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis attend the 95th annual Academy Awards in March 2023.Photo:Jim Ruymen/UPI/Shutterstock

Jim Ruymen/UPI/Shutterstock

Jamie Lee Curtisand Christopher Guest’s relationship had a whirlwind beginning.

The romance between theFreaky Fridayactress andPrincess Bridestar began with a magazine and a phone call. Though Curtis instantly knew he was the one, it took an in-person run-in for Guest to set up their first date, but within six months, they were husband and wife.

Ahead of the couple’s 40th wedding anniversary in December 2024, Curtis toldEntertainment Tonightthat the secret to a long-lasting marriage is that “you don’t leave.” She continued, “I’m sober for a long time, and we have a phrase in recovery: ‘If you stay on the bus, the scenery will change.’ And that’s marriage.”

Curtis has been open about how she and Guest have gone through their fair share of ups and downs. During a 1991 interview with PEOPLE, she said, “I don’t think we have an easy marriage. We have a difficult, but successful marriage.”

Three years later, Curtis gave further insight into what Guest is like behind the scenes. “It’s hard to talk about Chris because all you’re going to hear is the word ‘great,’ ” she told PEOPLE. “He’s a great listener, a great athlete, a great husband and father.”

Here’s everything to know about Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest’s relationship.

It was love at first sight

Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest attend “Perfect” premiere in May 1985 in New York City.Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Curtis and Guest’s romance started when she spotted him for the first time in a magazine and spoke their relationship into existence.

In a personal essay she wrote for PEOPLE in 2022, she revealed that there was a connection between her marriage and her iconic role in theHalloweenmovies.

“I was with the writer of the originalHalloweenwhen I saw my husband of 37 years for the first time,” she said. “Debra Hill and I were on my couch in West Hollywood in 1984. I opened up an issue ofRolling Stone, saw Christopher Guest in aSpinal Tapstory and said,‘I’m gonna marry that guy.’(I did, six months later).”

Curtis expanded on this story in a different essay she wrote forOprah.comin 2004. She explained that Hill told her who Guest was, saying he had been in the movieThis Is Spinal Tapand she knew his agent. Curtis called his agent to give him her number if Guest wanted to call, but he never did.

“I went on with my life,” Curtis said. Weeks later, she saw Guest across a restaurant called Hugo’s in West Hollywood. They waved at each other, and he called the next day.

They got married six months after meeting

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Curtis and Guest wasted no time starting their future together. In her personal essay for Oprah.com, the actress revealed that “one day in September,” they were talking on the phone when Guest told her he had gone for a walk on Fifth Avenue.

When she asked what he did there, he responded, “‘Do you like diamonds?’ ”

At the time, the couple were in a long-distance relationship due to their work — Curtis in Los Angeles and Guest in New York City — and it was hard for both of them.

In 1991, Guest told PEOPLE, “I had just fallen in love like a brick, and I was now in New York thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ ”

He popped the question, and they married on Dec. 18, 1984.

“Chris and I have a wonderful, complicated, imperfect life,” Curtis continued in her essay. “And a very real marriage. I’ll never know why I thought we’d understand each other when I saw his photograph."

Speaking on the subject toThe Guardianin 2016, Guest said, “We still have that original photo hanging up at the house.”

In December 2024, the couple celebrated their40th wedding anniversary. Curtis marked the milestone with a post onInstagram, writing, “40 years ago today, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, Christopher and I married. We loved each other but barely knew each other. Today, we know each other really well and still love each other.”

They have two kids

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

InPact’s Point of View Newsletter, Curtis touched on her experience with motherhood, saying, “Motherhood is every wonderful cliché in the book. There is an unexplainable sort of thing you just feel. It’s a permanent commitment, one I’ve changed my life to meet.”

After growing up dancing competitively, Annie attended Kenyon College in Ohio and graduated with a BFA in dance in 2009. She’s a dancer and was previously an instructorMNR Dance Factoryin Los Angeles, where she first began her dance training at age 8.

Curtis and Guest’s older daughter got married in 2019 to Jason Wolf in a backyard ceremony. While she has kept her personal life private, Annie sometimesmakes appearances with Curtison the red carpet.

They’re both in the entertainment business

Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis arrive at a screening of Netflix’s “Mascots” in October 2016 in Los Angeles, California.Amanda Edwards/WireImage

Amanda Edwards/WireImage

Both Curtis and Guest have years of experience working in Hollywood.

Curtis is an award-winning actress who is most well-known for her roles in slasher and horror films that have earned her the moniker “Scream Queen.” Aside from her iconic role as Laurie in theHalloweenfilms, she has also been in comedies likeTrading Placesand theAcademy Award-winning dramaEverything Everywhere All at Once, which earned her an Oscar as well.

The actress is also a children’s book author, having released over two dozen projects since her 1993 debut withWhen I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth. Curtis will release her next children’s book in January 2024 titledJust One More Sleep: All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait . . . and Wait . . . and Waitabout being patient around the holiday season. Most recently, she co-authored the graphic novelMother Nature.

Guest is known as a writer and director but has also dabbled in acting. He starred in the 1984 mockumentaryThis Is Spinal Tap. He has also worked on movies likeBest in Show, A Mighty Wind, MascotsandFor Your Consideration.

Throughout his five-decade-long career, Guest introduced a “distinctive style of fake documentary filmmaking that relies entirely on unscripted improvisations,” per theMuseum of Modern Art.

Their parents had unconventional careers

Jamie Lee Curtis with her parents, dad Tony Curtis and mom Janet Leigh.Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Another experience Curtis and Guest share is growing up with parents with notable careers.Curtis' parentswere accomplished actors Janet Leigh andTony Curtis. Leigh is best recognized for her role in the 1960Alfred HitchcockfilmPsycho, while Curtis was in various films, likeSome Like It HotandSpartacus.

Meanwhile, Guest’s father, Peter Haden-Guest, was born in England and was an editorial director at the United Nations. His mother, Jean Hindes Haden-Guest, was born in New York City and was the director of the American National Theater Academy (ANTA) before becoming vice president and head of talent at CBS a few years later.

According toThe New York Times, Peter “acceded to a hereditary Labor peerage” after his father, Leslie Haden-Guest, died, and the same happened when he died.

Their personalities are very different

Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis at the ‘This is Spinal Tap’ 35th anniversary screening during the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019.Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

In a 2018 interview withGood Housekeeping, Curtis described her and Guest as “opposites,” saying they have been since they met and “always will be.”

“We don’t listen to the same radio station, we don’t read the same paper, we don’t go to bed at the same time," she said.

“Then we took eight friends and retraced a section of the Missouri River in canoes that followed the path of their expedition. We’re a little nerdy,” she said.

They have a supportive union

Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis attend the Los Angeles premiere of “For Your Consideration” in November 2006 in Los Angeles, California.Vince Bucci/Getty

Vince Bucci/Getty

While Curtis and Guest may have their differences, they are always there for each other. In a 2021 interview withAARP, Curtis said, “I feel safewhen I drive up and see that [he is] home. That’s the long marriage.”

“It’s the safety of knowing his car is in the garage, that I’m not alone,” she added.

Two years later, at a San Diego Comic-Con panel, Curtis shared that Guest had encouraged her to write her graphic novel,Mother Nature.

“I came home and I said to my husband, ‘I should hire somebody to write Mother Nature.’ He said to me, as Christopher does, very quietly:‘Why don’t you?’” she recalled.

“I said, ‘Oh please, I don’t know how to write a screenplay. He looked at me and he said, ‘Yes, you do.’ ”

They know how to work through tough times

Jamie Lee Curtis and husband Christopher Guest at a Comedy Central after party in April 2001.Kevin Winter/Getty

Kevin Winter/Getty

Curtis and Guest have been married for 40 years, and like every marriage, they’ve experienced ups and downs. Whenever she has been asked about the secret to her relationship, Curtis has revealed it comes down to sticking together.

“Don’t get divorced,” she said onTodayin 2015. “It’s a fascinating thing. I could write a book on marriage calledDon’t Leave.”

Speaking withGood Housekeepingin 2018, she was asked the same question and elaborated on the subject.

“Don’t leave. There’s a recovery phrase that says, ‘Stay on the bus … the scenery will change,’ " Curtis explained. “You think you’re having a bad week, stay on the bus, because one of these days you’ll look out the window and it’ll be beautiful.”

She continued, “I think it can apply to almost anything where you feel unhappy in that moment. I’m not a wild romantic. I’m a realist. I respect him. And I just don’t leave.”

They are good friends with Jodie Foster

Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty

In April 2024, Curtis and Guest supportedJodie Fosteras she had herhands and feet immortalized in cementoutside the TCL Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.

TheHalloweenalum delivered a touching speech about her beloved friend — calling Foster a “creative force,” a “loving wife” and a “dedicated mother.”

source: people.com