Jeff Bridges' Best Role: A Man in Love With His Wife

As if you couldn't like the guy more.

When Jeff Bridges remembered to thank his stand-in as he accepted the Golden Globe for best actor in the film Crazy Heart, he proved what a stand up guy he really is.

When he thanked his wife, however,  you could feel the vibes of authenticity come shooting right through the television screen, and he became someone that husbands everywhere, it's safe to say, were instantly compared to. (Not so fair, but we totally get it.)

Jeff Bridges may well be on his way to win his first Oscar (he picked up a Screen Actor's Guild Award last week), but the role he seems to relish even more than the down and out country singer that's bringing him such accolades he portrays in Crazy Heart , is that of  husband to his wife of more than 30 years, Sue.

How rare an act of man of wife like that is. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward set the bar, of course, for longstanding marriages in Hollywood, but here comes Bridges with an open valentine, spoken with his mouth and seen in his eyes, as he accepted his Globe, and then his SAG, when he invited her up onstage.

"Can we all have Jeff Bridges' it-takes-two-marriage to Sue?" read one headline.

And now, following the "keeping up with the Bridges'" inspiring love life theme of late,  Reader's Digest is republishing an essay the actor wrote about his marriage for the magazine in 2006. Which will put to rest any doubts the cynics have about Bridges' playing this lovestruck angle up as part of an Oscar campaign.

The Big Lebowski would never abide after all.

"We've done 50 movies together. I say "we" because Sue deserves a credit too. I'm the guy who makes the buck, but she's the one who takes care of everything else."

And when (okay, if) he wins that Academy Award in March, we can all bet whose name will be the first on the list he thanks.

Read the entire piece, Jeff Bridges: On Marriage here.

Photo of Jeff Bridges courtesy of WikimediaCommons