For Jean Smart, the great love story of her life began with another woman’s television boyfriend.
It was 1986, and Smart was starring as Charlene Frazier on Designing Women when actor Richard Gilliland arrived on set to play J.D. Shackelford — the boyfriend of Annie Potts’ character, Mary Jo.
Smart noticed him almost immediately.
She was interested enough to ask costar Delta Burke whether the handsome guest actor was single. Burke took a characteristically direct approach and simply went over and asked him on Smart’s behalf. Smart later joked about “luring” Gilliland to her dressing room by asking for help with a crossword puzzle. (Winnipeg Free Press)
It worked.
They married the following year and remained together until Gilliland’s sudden death in March 2021.
Their marriage lasted nearly 34 years; Smart has often referred to the relationship more broadly as 35 years together. (People.com)
But there is another chapter to Smart’s romantic history that is easily overlooked.
Richard Gilliland was actually her second husband.
And now, five years after losing him, Smart has found companionship again.
Before Richard, Jean Smart Had Already Been Married Once
Long before Designing Women made her famous, Smart was a young theater actress from Seattle trying to figure out where her life would take her.
In 1974, shortly after graduating from college, she married John W. Norwalk Jr., then a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The ceremony took place on June 15 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Seattle. (HistoryLink)
Smart was only 22.
At the time, her career looked nothing like the one audiences know today. She was beginning years of theater work, including performances with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and was still a long way from becoming a television star.
The marriage did not last.
Smart and Norwalk divorced in 1977, after roughly three years, and they did not have children together. (HistoryLink)
Nearly a decade would pass before the relationship that transformed Smart’s personal life began.
Then Richard Gilliland Walked Onto the Set
By 1986, Smart had landed the role that changed everything.
Designing Women centered on four women working at an Atlanta interior-design firm and quickly became one of CBS’s defining comedies of the era.
Then Gilliland joined the series.
He wasn’t cast opposite Smart.
In fact, he was playing another character’s romantic interest.
That didn’t stop her from noticing him.
Smart later remembered asking Delta Burke about the new actor.
“Do you know if he has a girlfriend? Is he married?” she recalled wondering. Burke apparently skipped the detective work and went directly to Gilliland. (Yahoo)
Smart was mortified.
She was also, apparently, grateful.
A Crossword Puzzle Became Her Excuse
Smart eventually found a slightly subtler method of getting Gilliland alone.
She invited him into her dressing room under the pretense of needing help with a crossword puzzle.
The attraction wasn’t one-sided.
Gilliland later remembered locking eyes with Smart during his first table read and sensing that something unusual had happened between them. An old Entertainment Tonight retrospective recalled him describing their connection as immediate and “magical.” (designingwomenonline.com)
The relationship progressed quickly.
Within months, they were engaged.
And Smart later said that after they connected, they were essentially never apart. (Yahoo)
They Married in Another ‘Designing Women’ Star’s Garden
Their wedding was intimately connected to the show that brought them together.
Smart and Gilliland married in June 1987 in the rose garden at the home of Smart’s Designing Women costar Dixie Carter and Carter’s husband, actor Hal Holbrook. (Winnipeg Free Press)
It was an unusually romantic period behind the scenes of the sitcom.
Carter was married to Holbrook.
Delta Burke eventually married actor Gerald McRaney, who also appeared on the show.
And Smart had now married Gilliland.
For Smart, however, the relationship quickly became much bigger than a cute story about costars falling in love.
Richard became the person with whom she would build almost the entirety of her adult family life.
Their First Son Arrived Two Years Later
Smart and Gilliland welcomed their son Connor in October 1989.
Twenty years later, their family expanded again in a very different way.
In 2009, Smart and Gilliland adopted their second son, Forrest, from China when he was a baby. (People.com)
That meant the brothers grew up almost two decades apart.
Smart has spoken about how profoundly motherhood changed her priorities, particularly as she attempted to balance an increasingly successful acting career with family life.
And Gilliland understood that career better than most.
He was an actor too.
Richard Had His Own Long Hollywood Career
Gilliland worked steadily for decades, appearing in projects including The Waltons, Thirtysomething, Party of Five and Matlock.
He and Smart even occasionally worked together.
One especially fun coincidence came on 24: Smart played First Lady Martha Logan, while Gilliland appeared as Captain Stan Cotter. (Wikipedia)
They also shared the stage in productions including Love Letters and It Had to Be You and appeared together in television films.
But Gilliland’s career sometimes took a back seat to Smart’s.
Years later, she would look back on that with complicated feelings.
Jean Believed Richard Sacrificed Career Opportunities for Her
After Gilliland died, Smart spoke candidly about what she wished could have been different.
His career, she felt, had sometimes been affected by the practical realities of raising their family while her own work demanded long stretches away from home.
She acknowledged that he had turned down professional opportunities so she could pursue hers.
That realization became more painful after his death because there was no longer time to rebalance things.
Smart has described losing a spouse as fundamentally different from other forms of bereavement — the disappearance not only of someone you love but of the person with whom you expected to share your future. (People.com)
For decades, that future had always included Richard.
Then Everything Changed in March 2021
Gilliland died on March 18, 2021, at 71.
His death was unexpected.
Smart later explained that he had been experiencing pain when breathing deeply. During the pandemic, she initially wondered whether he had COVID-19 and took him to be tested. (People.com)
Eventually, the situation became far more serious.
Smart said Gilliland suffered a heart attack and developed pneumonia. Doctors inserted a stent in hopes of stabilizing him until the pneumonia improved enough for further treatment, but he died. (TV Insider)
For Smart, it was incomprehensible.
“It was such a shock,” she later recalled. (People.com)
At home, everything had changed overnight.
She Was Also in the Middle of Filming the Role That Would Reinvent Her Career
The timing was almost impossible.
Smart was filming the first season of Hacks when Gilliland died.
The HBO comedy would ultimately become one of the defining projects of her career, with Smart’s performance as legendary Las Vegas comedian Deborah Vance earning enormous critical acclaim and a succession of major awards.
Yet one of the greatest professional periods of her life began alongside one of its deepest personal losses.
She returned to work soon after Gilliland’s death.
Smart has since spoken about the strange collision between those two realities — career triumph happening while her home life had been shattered.
And there was another responsibility she couldn’t put aside.
Forrest was still young.
Suddenly She Was Raising Their Younger Son Without Richard
Connor was already an adult.
Forrest wasn’t.
Smart has said that becoming the sole parent of a younger child after Gilliland’s death gave her an entirely new appreciation for single working mothers.
Connor became an enormous source of support and at one point moved back home to help his mother and younger brother. (People.com)
The family reorganized itself around the empty space Richard had left.
And for several years, romance wasn’t exactly at the front of Smart’s mind.
Then someone persuaded her to go on a date.
Her First Date in More Than 30 Years Was a Disaster — at Least in Her Mind
In 2026, Smart finally told the story.
Speaking with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the Wiser Than Me podcast, she revealed what happened when she attempted dating again after Gilliland’s death.
A friend had introduced her to an actor named Joe Pacheco.
Smart described him as an “extremely lovely man.”
They went to dinner.
For Smart, it was her first date after more than three decades of marriage.
And she thought it went terribly. (Just Jared)
She called the experience “insanely demoralizing.”
Afterward, Smart went home convinced she would never hear from him again.
She was wrong.
Joe Called Her Again
Pacheco apparently had a considerably different impression of the evening.
The two continued seeing each other.
And gradually, Smart found herself in a relationship she hadn’t necessarily expected to have again.
Pacheco is also an actor, with credits including The Sopranos, Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order and The Morning Show. (Just Jared)
Their romance remained relatively quiet initially.
Then people began noticing the same man accompanying Smart to Hollywood events.
Joe Was Already Beside Her at the Emmys in 2024
Pacheco accompanied Smart to the 2024 Emmy Awards.
At the time, many viewers didn’t necessarily realize the significance of his presence.
He posted about attending with his “date,” calling Smart incredible. (Just Jared)
Then he appeared with her again.
By 2025, the two were attending more events together.
And in January 2026, they walked the Golden Globes red carpet holding hands.
This time there wasn’t much mystery left.
Smart had found someone.
She Thanked ‘Joe’ From the Golden Globes Stage
The 2026 Golden Globes provided perhaps the clearest public confirmation.
Smart won again for her performance in Hacks.
During her acceptance speech, she thanked the people closest to her.
And among them was Joe.
The two had arrived together, holding hands for photographers before the ceremony. (Just Jared)
For someone whose romantic life had been defined publicly by one man for more than three decades, it was a significant little moment.
She wasn’t erasing Richard.
She was allowing another person into her life.
Joe Even Appeared on ‘Hacks’
Their personal and professional worlds eventually crossed too.
Pacheco appeared during the final season of Hacks, playing a small role connected to Ava’s family. (TV Insider)
It echoed, in a funny way, how Smart’s relationship with Gilliland had started.
Once again, the man in her life was an actor.
Once again, their worlds could overlap on a television set.
But Smart has been careful about how she talks about the relationship.
She hasn’t presented Pacheco as a replacement for the husband she lost.
Those are two different chapters.
There’s Also an Age Difference — and Jean Has Joked About It
Smart is 75.
Pacheco is 67.
When discussing dating again, Smart acknowledged that being with someone younger gave her pause — not because eight years is particularly dramatic, but because losing Gilliland had made her acutely aware of what it means to imagine growing older beside another person. (People.com)
It’s an unexpectedly vulnerable detail.
Her hesitation wasn’t about Hollywood appearances.
It was about loss.
Once you’ve unexpectedly buried the person you expected to grow old with, contemplating another long-term relationship can carry a very different emotional weight.
Meanwhile, Forrest Has Grown Up Beside Her
There was another person beside Smart during her biggest night this year.
Her younger son.
Forrest, now 17, joined his mother at the 2026 Emmy Awards, where Smart celebrated another extraordinary milestone for Hacks. (People.com)
During her acceptance speech, she spoke lovingly about both Connor and Forrest and called her sons her “anchor.” (People.com)
It was particularly moving given everything the family had experienced since 2021.
Forrest had been a child when his father died.
Now he was standing beside his mother as she celebrated one of the greatest achievements of her career.
The Viral Story Gets One Important Detail Right
Yes, Richard Gilliland was Smart’s second husband.
Her first marriage to John W. Norwalk Jr. lasted from 1974 until 1977. (HistoryLink)
But the suggestion that another man simply “could have been her happily ever after” if Gilliland hadn’t died oversimplifies something Smart herself describes much more carefully.
Pacheco entered her life after an enormous loss.
Smart didn’t stop loving the husband with whom she had built a family because she began dating someone new.
She has continued speaking openly and emotionally about Gilliland even while appearing publicly with Pacheco.
Both realities can exist at once.
Richard Was There for Almost Every Version of Jean Smart
When Gilliland met Smart, Designing Women was just beginning.
He was there before Frasier.
Before 24.
Before Samantha Who?
Before Fargo.
Before Watchmen.
And before Deborah Vance transformed Smart’s career yet again in Hacks.
They raised Connor.
They traveled to China to adopt Forrest.
They worked together.
They grew older together.
And then, just as Smart was entering one of the most celebrated periods of her career, he was suddenly gone.
That helps explain why she has described the loss as so difficult to comprehend.
At 75, Her Life Looks Very Different Again
Five years after Gilliland’s death, Smart’s world has changed.
Her younger son is nearly grown.
Hacks has completed its run.
Her performance as Deborah Vance has brought her another extraordinary chapter of career success.
And the woman who once thought her first attempt at dating again was such a disaster that the man would never call her has discovered that he actually wanted a second date.
Then another.
By 2026, Joe Pacheco was holding her hand on major red carpets and hearing Smart thank him from an awards stage. (South China Morning Post)
It’s not the life she expected when she married Richard Gilliland in a rose garden in 1987.
But it is the life she has now.
And perhaps the most touching part of Smart’s story isn’t the idea of finding a replacement “happily ever after.”
It’s that after experiencing a marriage that lasted more than three decades and a loss she once described as almost impossible to comprehend, Jean Smart allowed herself to open the door to love again.
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