Who Is Mandy Patinkin's Wife? All About Kathryn Grody

Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody have two sons together

Mandy Patinkin has been married to his wife, Kathryn Grody, since 1980.

Patinkin has had a rich and varied acting career over the decades, and is known for his roles in shows including Criminal Minds, Chicago Hope and Homeland, as well as for his Broadway work.

And for most of his career, he’s had Grody by his side. They first met each other in 1978 while working on a play together. They began dating shortly after, got married in 1980 and had two children together.

Grody told Strathmore in 2024, “I couldn’t imagine life at all without my husband. Being without him as my life partner seemed a little death to me,” and said that his best traits are “his humor, his curiosity and his fierce care for his family’s welfare — short term and long.”

Patinkin said his wife’s best trait is “her never-ending commitment to her community of true lifelong friends,” and that the key to their long marriage has been “our mutual unwillingness to never give up or let go of our deep connection, no matter what our troubles appear to be.”

So who is Mandy Patinkin’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Kathryn Grody and her relationship with the actor.

She was born in Los Angeles and began acting

Grody was born in Los Angeles in 1946. She moved to New York City to study acting at HB Studio.

She wrote and acted in the play Mom’s Life, which was autobiographical, and in 2013, she appeared as Lola in a production of The Model Apartment.

Other shows and movies Grody has appeared in throughout her career include Harry and Walter Go to New York, The Big Fix, Rich Kids, The Rose and My Bodyguard. She also appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in 2005.

She met Patinkin in 1978 and married him in 1980

Patinkin and Grody went on their first date in April 1978. They met while working on a play together, per Vulture, but after getting “burned” by dating someone he was doing a play with the year before, Patinkin resolved not to date anyone he was working with until the play was over.

He said in 2018 — when they returned to the Upper West Side’s Jewish Theological Seminary, the place they got married, on the 40th anniversary of their first date — “I was dying to get to know her! So we made a date for the Sunday when it was over … And I sat down and gave her the flowers, and I said, ‘I’m gonna marry you!’ ”

Grody said that she didn’t believe in marriage at the time, telling Patinkin he was going to get “very hurt,” until their first kiss changed her mind. They got engaged in 1979 and married on June 15, 1980.

In April 2020, Patinkin posted a video of them on social media in which they said they’d just celebrated the 42nd anniversary of their first date, adding that they had been married for 40 years. Patinkin said, “It was a powerful ceremony, an unforgettable day in my life. It’s hallowed ground to me."

She has two sons with Patinkin

Patinkin and Grody have two sons: Isaac and Gideon. Isaac was born in 1983, while Gideon was born in 1987.

Isaac has a bachelor’s degree in community education and is a leadership fellow at Human Impact Partners, and per The Denver Post, works as a prevention services coordinator. He also acted alongside his father as a baby, playing his on-screen son in the 1983 movie Daniel.

Gideon helps his parents on social media. He began making social media videos of them during COVID-19. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “I thought they might die from COVID maybe soon-ish, so I was getting them to tell me some stories.”

She’s popular on social media

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Grody and Patinkin became social media stars during COVID-19 thanks to their son Gideon uploading footage of them online.

The couple share a TikTok account, on which they have more two million followers. They’re active on Instagram, too, where they have almost half a million followers. On Instagram, they post photos and videos of each other.

She’s a political activist and works with non-profit organizations

Both Patinkin and Grody are involved in politics, and it was through Grody that her husband became political. He told Vulture in 2018, “Kathryn was very political, she was a social activist in California, and brought that into my life.”

In 2020, they partnered with the political group Swing Left, and released videos encouraging people to vote for Joe Biden in the presidential election.

The couple are both ambassadors for the International Rescue Committee, and in 2022, they spoke to two IRC staff members who came to the U.S. as refugees.

She starred in a dramedy based on her marriage with Patinkin

Alongside filmmaker Ewen Wright and their son Gideon, Grody and Patinkin worked on a dramedy based on their marriage, per The Hollywood Reporter.

They shot a pilot for Showtime in summer 2022, but following the SAG-AFTRA strike, the network called to say the show, Seasoned, wasn’t going to move forward.

Grody explained that she’d not worked with Patinkin before. However, “It’s been this surprising joy of my life that I actually loved working with him. We work totally differently, but we support each other.”

Grody and Patinkin’s work moves each other to tears

Grody told Vulture that she’s moved by her husband’s work — particularly when he sings the song “Being Alive” from the musical Company. She said, “That’s our song — ‘Somebody hold you too tight, somebody love you too much.’ I’m overwhelmed by how he still moves me. And it’s the same thing — I’ve seen him sing that song a million times. And I lose it every time.”

Meanwhile, Patinkin said that when he went to see Grody in the play 20th Century Blues, he “almost had to leave the theater.” He said, “I almost had to leave the theater because I was worried I was going to disturb the place with my sobs. And I had to choke so hard just to be quiet. And it came in waves, one after another.

Patinkin called her his “north star”

Speaking to CNN in 2020, Patinkin described Grody as his “north star,” joking, “She is always right, with very few exceptions — mostly relating to the inner workings of our appliances (and even there she’s rapidly gaining knowledge and is on track to outpace me by 2022).”

Meanwhile, Grody told Vulture in 2018, “We talk a lot about being stunned about being older. Some days it’s really shocking. But even when it’s shocking, I see him as the person I first met. I see that person in him now. So I get more of him. I get the gorgeous young guy and the gorgeous old guy.

In 2020, Grody and Patinkin credited spending a lot of time apart with the longevity of their relationship, and explained that even though they were spending a lot of time together during the COVID-19 pandemic, she spent three hours a day alone in her writer’s room, per The Hollywood Reporter.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.