“We were both nervous as teenagers, but we’ve been together since.”
While some people are lucky to meet their soulmates in school. Others have to wait for a lifetime. Dallas star Patrick Duffy, 73, and Happy Days actor Linda Purl, 67 were also brought together by fate later in their lives, but now they are a happy couple.
Both Duffy and Purl had been working for decades in Hollywood, creating successful careers and high-profile brands, before meeting each other.
In their personal lives, Purl had been married four times. Her ex-husbands include Desi Arnaz Jr. (1980 to 1981), William Broyles Jr. (1988 to 1992), Alexander Cary (1993 to 1999), and James Vinson Adams (2006 to 2011). She, however, only had one child and had reportedly not considered dating again after her split with Vinson Adams.
Whereas, Patrick Duffy was in a long-standing, loving marriage with Carlyn Rosser for 43 years. Sadly, she passed away at the age of 77 in 2017. The couple shared two sons.
According to PEOPLE, it took Duffy a long time to heal from his wife's death. Yet in 2019, love again entered his life, in the form of Linda Purl. They both attended a Los Angeles event in 2019 where they met each other for the first time.
They met through a mutual friend and became friends. The three of them, Duffy, Purl, and their mutual friend – started a group chat, but eventually, the mutual friend left the group, leaving Duffy and Purl to get to know each other privately.
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The duo did not take long to realize that they connected deeply with each other. Soon, Duffy and Purl found themselves FaceTiming each other every Wednesday as Duffy was in Canada at the time, while Purl was acting in a play in New York.
The online nature of their contact meant that their sparks were not disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Duffy kept himself in isolation on his ranch, while Purl spent much of the pandemic in Colorado. Even so, they continued to call each other on Zoom regularly.
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Through these calls, both found each other and love. In the end, Duffy drove over 20 hours non-stop to spend time with Purl. Duffy told PEOPLE, “I loaded up my car and drove 20 hours and ended up on her doorstep just to see if it was real." He added, “We haven’t been apart since.”
“We were both nervous as teenagers, but we’ve been together since.” The couple spent three weeks to know each other before their first kiss. “We listened to music together and covered all that ground you normally cover over months of dating,” Duffy said of their calls.
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Now, they have been together for three years. “I’m as happy now as I was in the first year of being with my wife,” Duffy explained. The couple even exercises and cooks together. Duffy described their relationship as “very compatible”. He elaborated to PEOPLE, “In the kitchen, the way we cook, the way we clean, the way we function together as individuals.”
We can all learn from their love story that it is never too late to find love!
References:
https://people.com/tv/dallas-patrick-duffy-is-dating-happy-days-linda-purl/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Michael Tullberg
