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The year was 1972 when Oscar-nominated actress — and cool mom — Melanie Griffith first laid eyes on future husband and Golden Globe-winning actor Don Johnson. However, since she was only 14 (Johnson was 22), it would be a few years before the two started up anything romantically. In fact, throughout their relationship, Griffith and Johnson married and divorced each other twice.
As with any relationship, theirs was marked by the good times and the not-so-good times (hence, the two marriages and divorces). Both reportedly battled alcohol addiction at different points, according to People. However, they decided to give love a second chance.
"I wish it was tomorrow," Griffith told People ahead of their second wedding. "He's wonderful [...] I believe some relationships are fated, and ours was probably one of them. I'll always love him. He was my first love."
Here's a look back at Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson's relationship.
1972: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson first meet
In 1972, a teenage Griffith met Johnson, who was eight years her senior, on the set of their movie, The Harrad Experiment — which her mother, Tippi Hedren, also starred in.
"We were in the stairwell of this Anheuser-Busch Estate waiting for a setup," Johnson recounted to The Hollywood Reporter. "We started chitchatting. I thought he was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen."
Hedren, who by then was an acting legend, recalled feeling "sheer panic" that her teen daughter had fallen for an older man.
"How do you handle that? There was a very strong attachment between the two of them," she said.
1976: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson get engaged and marry
Frank Edwards / Archive Photos / Getty Images
Johnson and Griffith moved in together when she was 15 and got engaged on her 18th birthday, tying the knot in 1976, reported People. On the evening before the wedding, "I had been with [ex-Miss World] Marjorie Wallace most of the night," the Knives Out actor later admitted. "Melanie called at about 4 or 5 in the morning. We professed undying love and flew to Las Vegas and got married."
1976: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson get divorced
The marriage (well, the first one — but more on that later) lasted only six months, and after the divorce, Griffith went on to date actor Ryan O'Neal and marry her She's in the Army Now co-star Steven Bauer, with whom she split in 1989. She and Bauer had one son together, Alexander Griffith Bauer. Johnson, meanwhile, dated actress Patti D'Arbanville, with whom he had a son, Jesse Johnson.
June 26, 1989: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson get married for a second time
After some time apart, Griffith and Johnson found their way back to each other — and gave marriage another shot.
In June 1989, they remarried in an intimate ceremony at their ranch in Aspen, with their sons from their previous marriages serving as ring-bearers. At the time, security at the nuptials said fans were discovered crawling up the irrigation ditch leading from an adjoining ranch onto the land to get a glimpse at the actors.
"There was always this connection. I can't explain it," the Working Girl star told People. "It's almost like soulmates, and it always was. I didn't want it to be like that sometimes, and sometimes I wanted not to love him. But maybe it was karma, and you have to go through all that to get to where we are now. Now it's different. It's like it was in the very beginning, but there is so much more."
October 4, 1989: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson welcome a baby
Plus, it was during their reunion that daughter Dakota was born — Johnson was elated at the news that Griffith was pregnant, telling Hedren at the time, "This is God's plan."
Dakota Johnson, of course, followed in her parents' footsteps, becoming a star in her own right after her breakout role in Fifty Shades of Grey, and even gave her parents a nod in her Saturday Night Live opening monologue.
March 11, 1994: Melanie Griffith files for divorce from Don Johnson again
Sadly, their second union wasn't meant to be. They divorced again after five years together in 1994, citing irreconcilable differences, reported the Los Angeles Times.
"It is hard for me to imagine life without him. But we are changing in different ways." Griffith told Vanity Fair (via People) at the time. Though they remained separated, the two have remained close — in The Hollywood Reporter interview, the Watchmen alum said there "still is" a strong bond between the two of them.
Johnson told The Daily Telegraph in 2019, "It's pretty simple: When you love your children and want to share your life with them, it's foolish to denigrate or have any animosity with their mother. Children model you more than they listen to you."
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