FARGO — For the last few years, Forum readers have been enthralled by
, the celebrity name for the coupling of movie star Josh Duhamel with Fargo native and Miss USA runner-up Audra Mari.
We’ve watched their relationship bloom after Duhamel, a Minot native, invited his fellow North Dakotan to his house for a barbecue. In 2022, the couple
tied the knot in downtown Fargo
and
recently welcomed a son into the family
.
But JoshMari isn’t the first celebrity couple from these parts. In fact, a few other women in the Fargo-Moorhead area have made news for marrying celebrities: Kari Wigton Clark (Dick Clark), Sue Geston Bridges (Jeff Bridges) and Leslie Stefanson (James Spader) might just be the O.G. “Real Celebrity Wives of Fargo-Moorhead.”
For nearly twenty years, we Americans have endured the over-the-top, lip-injected, table-tipping antics of the wives of Beverly Hills, New York, Atlanta, and other cities. But these three women with ties to Fargo-Moorhead are different. In Leslie Stefanson’s case, she was famous before she coupled with her TV star partner. In the other instances, love bloomed in the office for Kari Wigton Clark and on a movie set in Montana for Sue Geston Bridges. In every instance, they were or are among the longest relationships in show business.
Here is a closer look at these women and their superstar love stories.
Karen “Kari” Wigton grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. At St. Cloud Technical High School she was a majorette and 1959’s Homecoming Queen. Following graduation in 1960, she attended North Dakota State University in Fargo.
Contributed/St. Cloud Tech Yearbook via Ancestry.com
According to the Forum archives, she helped form the Bison Pom Pon squad and choreographed the routines that first year. Following graduation in 1964, Wigton worked in the Washington office of Sen. Quentin Burdick, D-ND.
After three years working in D.C., Wigton went to Los Angeles where she met television and music icon Dick Clark while working at Dick Clark Productions.
Contributed/St. Cloud Tech Yearbook via Ancestry.com
Clark, known by many as “America’s Oldest Teenager,” for his perpetual youthful appearance, had already been in the public eye for more than 20 years with his hosting duties for “American Bandstand,” “The $10,000 Pyramid,” and more.
After seven years of dating, the two married on July 7, 1977. It was Clark’s third marriage and Wigton’s first. Clark often called Wigton “the love of my life.”
In a video about their love story published for Extra TV, they explained that there was just something about all of the sevens of 7/7/77 that meant it was time to tie the knot. (Listening to the couple chat, it’s pretty clear Kari still had a bit of a Minnesota accent.)
The Clarks continued to work together with Kari serving as Vice President of Dick Clark Productions and helping manage her husband’s busy schedule.
That busy schedule included visits to Fargo several times a year where much of Kari’s family lived and worked. They almost visited at Christmastime when Dick couldn’t get enough of his mother-in-law, Esther Wigton’s baked goods.
He told The Forum in 1987, “I eat too many Swedish and Norwegian baked goods with strange names I’ve never heard of and haven’t been the same since.”
Forum archives
His particular favorite? Lefse.
“I’m hooked on lefse and they import it to California. You can eat it with anything so you’re a lost cause,” he said.
While Christmas was low-key in Fargo, it gave them a chance to rest before one of Clark’s most famous gigs hosting “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
“Fargo is our regular stop before going to New York for the New Year’s Eve show in Times Square,” Dick told The Forum in 1987. “We come here and freeze and that kind of warms us up for New York.”
He was always surprised by the weather in Fargo-Moorhead, where he had been both hotter and colder than anywhere else in the world. However, he liked the flat landscape, peace and quiet.
Contributed/©ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection
“There’s a difference between standing out in Times Square and freezing and a nice day in North Dakota, which is much more pleasant,” he said.
Kari called her relationship with the famous television icon “easy” and “very compatible.”
“It works. It just works,” she said.
Kari became Dick’s caretaker when he suffered from a debilitating stroke in December of 2004. He continued to work, appearing alongside his successor Ryan Seacrest on the New Year’s Eve Show. He died of a heart attack eight years later at the age of 82.
After 37 years of marriage, Kari Wigton Clark survived her famous husband and still lives in California.
Contributed/Fargo North High Yearbook 1970 via Ancestry.com
It must have been something in the air that summer of 1977. Just one month before Dick and Kari Wigton Clark tied the knot, another North Dakota woman married a celebrity.
Susan Geston of Fargo married actor Jeff Bridges on Jun 5, 1977 at his Malibu home.
Geston attended Fargo North High School where she was a cheerleader and on the homecoming court.
She met Bridges in 1974 while she was working at Chico Hot Springs Lodge near Livingston, Montana, and he was filming “Rancho Deluxe” nearby. She had taken a waitress job between quarters at the University of Missoula (in 1989, the school transitioned to a semester system).
Geston had just been in a car accident and she had two black eyes and a broken nose. Still, Bridges, the youngest of the Bridges acting family (his father is Lloyd Bridges and his older brother is Beau Bridges) couldn’t take his eyes off “this beautiful girl.”
Contributed/Jeff Bridges via Off the Camera
He got up the nerve to ask her out. But she rejected him and said “it’s a small town. Maybe, I’ll see you around.”
“Her prophecy proved true,” Bridges said in an interview for the Off the Camera show. “I saw her at the wrap party. We danced. I was head over heels before I even saw her.”
One thing led to another and the couple moved to California together. Marriage eventually followed three years later.
Forum archives
The couple has made trips home to Fargo, where they visit Geston’s family, including her mother, Patricia Hansen, who taught English and film at Minnesota State University Moorhead for 28 years.
Hansen, who died in 2013, told The Forum in 2010 that Bridges is a “renaissance man,” who paints, does ceramics, and writes music. He also isn’t above consulting with his mother-in-law about film choices. (Hansen wisely advised him to pass on the William Holden role in the 1995 remake of “Sabrina.”)
“He is just a wonderful man,” Hansen said. “He just adores Susan and she adores him.”
Forum file photo
In fact, the Oscar-winning Bridges might also take the prize for Best Son-in-Law.
Hansen told The Forum in 2010 that Bridges would call her every year on her daughter’s birthday to thank her for “giving birth to the love of his life.” He also gave her a statuette for being “The World’s Best Mother-in-Law.”
The Bridges have been married for nearly 47 years and have three daughters. Susan once told reporters that their parenting style worked because “he was fun, and I was the constant.”
She now works as a photographer and received rave reviews for a recent exhibit of photographs she took during her husband’s time shooting “Heaven’s Gate.” They live in Montana where their love story began.
It’s worth noting that Jeff Bridges shared the big screen with the last of the F-M celebrity women profiled here.
Leslie Stefanson, a 1989 graduate of Moorhead High School, appeared alongside Bridges in the 1996 film, “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” In an interview with WDAY-TV in 2001, Stefanson talked about the “sheer terror” of auditioning for Barbra Streisand, who produced and starred in the movie.
WDAY-TV
“First, I had to audition for the casting director twice, and then I had to audition for Barbara, which was one of the most nervous days,” she said. “I just remember she had really long fingernails and I think I was focusing on her fingernails the entire time. But she was lovely. She was really lovely and supportive.”
Stefanson said she grew up in a very encouraging family. In high school, she ran track. But her time in theater at Barnard College convinced her to try acting for a living.
Contributed/Moorhead High School Yearbook 1987 via Ancestry.com
She soon found work in commercials and film. In addition to her role in “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” she played “The General’s Daughter” in the film of the same name. She co-starred with John Travolta, “the nicest person I ever met in Hollywood,” she described at the time.
In 2002, she hit it off with actor James Spader, known for “The Blacklist,” “Boston Legal,” and “Pretty in Pink.”
According to Stefanson’s
website, the two live in New York City with their son.
Stefanson is now an award-winning sculptor who exhibits her work worldwide.
She studied anatomy and figure sculpture under Robert Cunningham, stone carving at Otis Art School, and écorché and life drawing at Los Angeles Art College. Starting in 2018 her work has focused on highlighting the world’s refugee crisis. She still makes visits home to Moorhead to see family.
This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of the Hollywood power couples with ties to Fargo-Moorhead.
Read about celebrity spouses from other parts of the region.
Did we miss anyone? Let us know. Email Tracy Briggs at tracy.briggs@forumcomm.com.
