Donna Hanover - Author

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

You might know Donna Hanover as the former First Lady of New York City, as then-wife of Rudy Giuliani.

Or perhaps you may recognize her from one of her many TV and film roles, from shows such as Law& Order and The Practice to feature films such as Ransom. But recently, she’s been writing My Boyfriend's Back, which she describes as a “great romantic read.” The book details the stories of 50 couples—including Donna and her new husband—who rediscovered their high school and college sweethearts quite a ways down the road of life. In our interview with Donna, the author talks about her own experience of reuniting with her long-lost sweetheart, as well as the similar stories of numerous other couples, and the happiness that so many have found from this phenomenon that is sweeping the country.


DH: So we’re gonna talk about My Boyfriend's Back?

DM: Exactly.

DH: You have a copy of it?

DM: Yes, I do.

DH: Great!

DM: Actually, mind you, my wife stole the copy first.

DH: Oh! I’m so happy to hear that.

DM: Yeah, she stole it and ripped through it. I think I was allowed to see about two or three pages before she finished it. She enjoyed it a lot.

DH: Well, it’s kind of a great romantic read. Actually, beach time is a real good time for people to kind of pick it up and flip through it.

DM: Exactly. That was probably my first question: you say “great romantic read”—I’m trying to think of the right way to phrase this question, because it’s a sort of a delicate balance—I guess I always grew up with the notion that you’re going to find the perfect person, fall in love, and everything will be great. You’ll be with them for about 84 years and then you’ll die together in a plane crash or something— the point is, you’re together to the end. The point of all this being that the book is basically about rediscovering your old high school sweetheart. I read one article that said, “Well, that’s great, but you know she was married before.” It sort of devalues it. Do you know what I’m saying?

DH: Okay. I have a chapter in here called "Flashing Yellow Lights," right toward the end. It is kind of the warning chapter.

DM: Okay. (laughs)

DH: It says that there are things you need to be concerned about, and to know, and to consider. There’s also the possibility that the person you reunite with might not be as honorable a person as you remember him or her to be, or maybe your judgment wasn’t so good—maybe they’ve changed. So you need to be smart about this. You need to keep your wits about you. I wrote My Boyfriend's Back as an “enjoy it vicariously” book for everybody, of course. But I also wrote it for people to take action if they’re single, if they’re widowed, if they’re divorced. And truthfully, Dominick, I knew that mothers would buy it for their sons and daughters. I knew they would buy it and hand it over to them and say, “Okay, you’re not dating anybody seriously. Go back and find somebody from high school or college and get me grandchildren!” I knew that this would happen, but what I found also happened was people were buying it for their mothers—or their fathers—who were widowed or divorced. Because it turns out that if you’re in that situation then—at all ages too—but especially at an older age, it’s so much more comfortable to spend time with somebody who remembers you from the past, who you know, who you have this sort of fundamental understanding of. And so, it’s really turned out to be quite wonderful for all ages. So that’s been a really nice piece of it. And there have been a lot of stories. I’ve heard from at least a thousand couples online!

DM: Oh Lord.

DH: On my website, there’s a section called “tell your story.” That’s how I’ve heard all of these stories since writing the book, the thousand stories that I wrote about. If you read the new introduction in the paperback, I kind of mentioned a few of the stories that I’ve gotten on the website. But what that’s told me is that this is a phenomenon that is sweeping the country. And I would say, yeah, maybe there were 10 or 15 percent of the stories that were in some way unhappy. You know: “We were reunited and it didn’t work out,” or “The person was married,” or something like that. But I would say 80-85 percent of them were joyous and kind of astounded, stunned that this kind of happiness had come to them at a point in life when they didn’t expect it.

DM: Well, does the reuniting devalue the first relationship?

DH: Oh, you mean the person that passed away or something?

DM: Exactly. You know, someone’s married and they divorce, or someone’s married and the person dies… It strikes a chord with me, and I guess I say that from something of a personal connection. I’ve had friends of the family, married for 50 years, get remarried.

DH: Right.

DM: And I feel like, am I supposed to be happy? It’s like you know, I’m happy you found love, but then again, what about Uncle Jimmy we’ve known for 50 years? Well, not 50 for me, but… (laughs)

DH: Take a look at the chapter called "More Wonderful Love." It starts out with precisely that situation. It’s Mary Gibbon Clark, who was widowed in 2000, and she says, “I already had the best of everything, but suddenly I’ve got this extra joy, which amazed me.” And she wanted to be very clear that she had loved her husband who had passed away, but this was—she considered it more, wonderful love. And her children felt the same way. So you know, there are many people who are in that situation. It doesn’t deny that they were married before and had long and wonderful love. Suzanne Pleshette and Tom Poston are an example of that. They had dated on Broadway in the ’50s. They were both on The Bob Newhart Show, but they actually knew each other before that. They dated when they were starring in a show on Broadway and then she moved west and he kind of stayed here in the east. They both married other people and had long, long marriages, and happy ones. And then they were both widowed and got back together. And she’s very funny. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at that story, but she said, “I said to him, don’t be thinkin’ that just because we were together a long time ago that you’re gonna get your way without a rock on my finger.” (laughs) He was hilarious—he’s a comedian—and he went for it. He got a piece of gravel and set it in a beautiful Tiffany-setting (laughter) and went down on one knee, and after that, she said, “You gotta love the guy, don’t ya?”

DM: (laughs)

DH: We live so much longer and so much healthier than we did maybe 50 years ago. So people are often left with many years to go and an ability for love and companionship. Many times, their adult children find that this is wonderful because they don’t worry about their parents. There’s someone there to be a companion, to travel with, to watch out in case there’s illness, to go to the doctor with, to share those later years with.

DM: Yeah.

DH: So for the most part, it’s absolutely a joyous thing and it doesn’t at all discount what came before. Well, of the people I interviewed, many of them said that they thought their spouse would have wanted this for them.

DM: Really?

DH: Yes. So I don’t think it’s really a big issue. Of course, people are going to, at the end of their lives, kind of reevaluate everything and think back, and all that kind of stuff. But many, many people are going in this direction and that tells you something about what we need. Maybe we’re not supposed to spend the next 30 years mourning a person, you know? So anyway, I wrote the book for people who were saying, “You know, I just don’t think that I’m ever gonna have love and companionship.” There’s one couple in here, also in the "More Wonderful Love" chapter, in which the man is a psychiatrist. He works at McClane Hospital up in Boston and 50 years ago they were sweethearts at Overland College—fast forward 50 years and they get back together. They are both ecstatic and he said, “You have got to get the word out because this can make people so much happier.” And here he is, speaking from both the perspective of a psychiatrist and a person involved with a reunited situation!

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