A Couple We Can Believe In: Jay and Mavis Leno

Married for 28 years (practically a lifetime in Hollywood), the former Tonight Show host gave his wife serious props on his last show. “I’m proud to be leaving this dance with the same girl I came in with,” said the comedian about Mavis, a voracious reader who has championed the plight of women in Afghanistan and works tirelessly with the Feminist Majority Foundation. They met at the Comedy Store in 1976 and the chemistry was instantaneous. “I realized all this time I’d been sailing, he was the destination,” Mavis has said. They have cats and cars instead of kids and are perfectly happy with that. Jay told the L.A. Times, “I spent half of my life trying not to disappoint my mother and the other half trying not to disappoint my wife. You need to be able to look in the mirror.”