‘Taxi’s’ Marilu Henner Marries For Third Time

NEW YORK (December 24, 2006) — Actress Marilu Henner, best known for her role in the hit TV series “Taxi,” has married a former college classmate who proposed from his hospital bed after surgery for cancer.

Henner, 54, married Michael Brown, also 54, before 100 people in Henner’s home in Los Angeles on Thursday, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Henner, who made her Broadway debut in the musical “Over Here!” in 1974, wore a pale peach Escada gown and was given away by her sons Nicky, 12, and Joey, 11.

Brown’s twin brother, a Universal Life minister, officiated.

The two met when they were students at the University of Chicago. He had dated her roommate, and even after the couple broke up Henner didn’t pursue him because she didn’t want to break the “girlfriend code,” she told the Times.

In 2001, a mutual friend gave Henner’s telephone number to Brown and they went on a dinner date.

Within a couple months, Brown was diagnosed with bladder and lung cancer.

When Brown awoke from surgery to remove the lower lobe of his right lung in November of that year, Henner was sitting at his bedside, smiling and holding his hand. He proposed on the spot.

It was Henner’s third marriage and the second for Brown, who has three children.