Who Is Meryl Streep's Husband? All About Don Gummer

Meryl Streep and Don Gummer, who wed in 1978, have been separated for more than six years

Meryl Streep and Don Gummer's marriage is over — and has been for more than six years.

In October 2023, PEOPLE learned that Streep and Gummer, who met in 1978 and got married just six months later, have been separated for nearly a decade. The couple share four children: Henry, Mamie, Grace and Louisa.

Gummer and Streep have not been seen publicly together since the 2018 Oscars. However, the Only Murders in the Building actress still wears her wedding band.

So, who is Meryl Streep's estranged husband? Keep reading for everything there is to know about Don Gummer.

He is a visual artist

Gummer was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in December 1946, according to his website. He is a sculptor who graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later earned an MFA from Yale University. He creates large-scale abstract contemporary sculptures, and he has consistently had solo and group exhibitions in galleries around the world since 1973.

He met Streep at a difficult time in her life

When Gummer first met Streep, she was mourning the death of her boyfriend of two years, John Cazale. Cazale was also an actor, starring in movies like The Godfather and The Deer Hunter, his final film and the only time he and Streep shared the screen. Cazale died of lung cancer in March 1978.

As detailed in Michael Schulman's biography Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep, the actress needed to move out of the apartment she shared with Cazale, so her brother showed up to help, and he brought along a friend: Gummer. Streep ended up subletting Gummer's New York City apartment while he traveled, and she filmed Kramer vs. Kramer — the movie that landed her her first Oscar. Streep and Gummer became close friends and corresponded through letters. When he returned to the city, the pair quickly fell in love.

Just six months later, Streep and Gummer married at her parents' Connecticut home in September 1978.

He and Streep have four children

Streep and Gummer have four children: Henry Wolfe Gummer was born in 1979, followed by Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer in 1983, Grace Gummer in 1986 and Louisa Jacobson Gummer in 1991. The kids grew up in rural Connecticut, away from the public eye.

"They got their legs from their dad, thank God," Streep said in 2006. "[They got] my sense of humor and a love of a bargain."

Jokes aside, Streep and Gummer take parenting seriously. "Our marriage and our children and their well-being inform all the decisions we make," Streep said in 2016.

Streep and Gummer became grandparents in 2019 when Mamie welcomed a baby boy with her then-fiancé Mehar Sethi. Henry and his wife, Tamryn Gummer, then gave the couple two more grandchildren: daughter Ida June, born in 2020, and son Quinn William, born in 2022. Streep and Gummer's brood of grandchildren grew by one more when Grace and her husband, Mark Ronson, welcomed a baby girl in early 2023.

He and Streep raised creative kids

In one way or another, all of Streep and Gummer's children have followed creative paths, though none have gone into the visual arts. "My poor dad," Mamie said in 2007. "My youngest sister does have an eye for aesthetics and a skilled hand. She is very interested in fashion and design."

Mamie, Grace and Louisa are actors and models, even appearing in campaigns together, while Henry is a musician. In fact, some of his songs were featured on the soundtracks of Streep's films, including Julie & Julia and Ricki and the Flash.

Streep and daughter Mamie have also costarred alongside each other. When Mamie was a toddler, she appeared as the daughter of Streep's character in Heartburn. As an adult, Mamie and Streep shared the screen in the films Ricki and the Flash and Evening.

Grace has starred alongside her famous mom as well, playing a younger version of Streep's character in The House of the Spirits. The couple's youngest child, Louisa, currently stars in HBO's period drama The Gilded Age.

He and Streep viewed marriage as a partnership

Both Streep and Gummer maintained successful careers throughout their marriage and while raising four children. Their secret was "goodwill and willingness to bend — and to shut up every once in a while," Streep told Vogue in 2002.

"There's no road map on how to raise a family: It's always an enormous negotiation," she added. "But I have a holistic need to work and to have huge ties of love in my life. I can't imagine eschewing one for the other."

Streep elaborated on that partnership in 2019, adding that Gummer was the "good cop" to her "bad cop." She told the Sydney Morning Herald, "Teamwork is everything. My husband Don was … very involved. He was a little more relaxed when it comes to raising kids. I was more of a tiger mom."

Streep added that she was grateful to have a partner who was "always happy to look after the children" so that she would feel "not as guilty" traveling for work.

He and Streep are separated

While they haven't legally divorced, Streep and Gummer decided to end their marriage years ago.

"Don Gummer and Meryl Streep have been separated for more than 6 years, and while they will always care for each other, they have chosen lives apart,” a representative for Streep told PEOPLE in October 2023.

He appeared on red carpets with Streep

Over the years, Gummer attended countless red carpet events with his award-winning wife — Streep has broken her own record for the most Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations. The couple attended the Academy Awards dozens of times, starting as early as 1980.

When Streep won her second Academy Award in 1983 for Sophie's Choice, she famously forgot to thank Gummer. Accepting her third Oscar in 2012, she started her speech by thanking Gummer. "First, I'm going to thank Don because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives, you've given me," she said.

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