Brooke Adams' Daughter ‘Picked’ Tony Shalhoub as Her Dad Way before He Started Dating Her Mom

Tony Shalhoub and Brooke Adams have been married for 31 years, which is rare in Hollywood. Both have had high-profile roles, Shalhoub in “Monk” and Adams “Days of Heaven.”

Actress Brooke Adams said she never wanted to marry but dearly wanted kids. So, she adopted a baby girl named Josie, who behaved well and made her look like a perfect mom.

“I’d never expected to get married. I hadn’t wanted to. But I’d always wanted to have children, so I started on my own,” Adams wrote in a piece published on Huff Post.

She was in her forties when she tied the knot for the first time in her life. By then, Adams was already a single mother as she adopted Josie at birth. The New York native further explained:

“She was an easy baby and toddler; cheerful, social, and just the cutest thing you ever saw. She was so well behaved she made me look like a good mother.”

She met Tony Shalhoub while doing a show, and the two had an undeniable connection from the onset. However, he had a girlfriend at the time, “and he was a gentleman,” said Adams, who added that even though the actor’s loyalty was “misguided," she was impressed.

At the same time, Shalhoub was also in love with her. Notably, when they worked on the Broadway play “The Heidi Chronicles” in 1990, Shalhoub was a working actor, and Adams was living in Los Angeles and not getting many gigs as an actress.

Her luck changed when she got cast as a replacement for fellow actress Christine Lahti. Although she and Shalhoub crossed paths, they met when his contract was about to end. Irrespective of that, things quickly changed for him when she became a part of the play as he revealed:

“I re-upped for another four months because I couldn’t extricate myself.”

During a dialogue with his wife three years ago published on Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas, Adams asked him whether he felt trapped at the time, and he shared he could not leave. When she suggested whether it was a case of him not wanting to go, Shalhoub agreed.

She also asked whether it was because he was infatuated with her, and he agreed again. “That’s right. I was so completely enamored of her that I could not leave," said the Wisconsin native.

Moreover, in March 2010, Adams jokingly told New York Magazine that she was a star when she met Shalhoub. “Of course, I was the star when we met, and he was a lil nothing.”

A mere fact as she was well known from movies like “Invasion of the Body,” “The Dead Zone,” and “Snatchers” while he was still a year away from his breakthrough role as the cab driver in the sitcom “Wings.”

Shalhoub had a crush on Adams, which developed from watching her and Richard Gere play migrant farmworkers in “Days of Heaven” years earlier.

The now-74-year-old was attracted to him too, but he was already in a relationship with someone else. “I wanted to go out with him, but he was honorable, which I thought was a good sign,” said Adams.

Her daughter Josie was 11-months-old at the time, and according to her mother, the toddler “was crazy about” Shalhoub. Adams revealed that her then-3-year-old picked the “Monk” alum as her dad way before he started dating her.

“And it turned out to be an excellent choice," the proud mom admitted, adding any time she spent with Shalhoub outside their play was with little Josie.

“And it was fun and sexy to act as a family while pretending nothing was going on,” she noted of him naturally attempting to have a close relationship with her daughter.

However, when the play was over, she and the Tony Award winner parted ways and did not see each other for almost two years afterward.

HOW SHALHOUB & BROOKE BECAME A COUPLE

Despite their mutual attraction initially, nothing happened between the pair until after each left the show and separately relocated to LA for work.

About eight months later, Shalhoub’s father passed away, and Adams wrote him a condolence letter which led to them reconnecting. Soon after, they went out on a date.

Shalhoub proposed two months later, and at the time, Adams had gotten the national tour of “Lost in Yonkers,” and he was doing “Wings.”

But that did not deter their plans to get married as she negotiated to have three months off the tour and headed to New York to say “I do,” and later joined up with the tour in LA.

On the other hand, Shalhoub was also doing a play on Broadway, and they both needed to be near the city. Eventually, the couple tied the knot in April 1992.

Adams revealed they found an old stone cottage overlooking the Hudson in a town called Sneden’s Landing that was 45 minutes from Times Square:

“It was incredibly romantic. I hadn’t planned anything for our April wedding, and it was already late March.”

Shalhoub was 38 years old, and she had just turned 43 when they got hitched. For him, it was a significant decision to settle down with the brunette beauty.

The “Pain & Gain” star shared that he understood there would never be another person for him except for Adams, and he needed to be well-rounded:

“There was this instant feeling, that this was going to be it, there would never be any other person for me. There was a matter of that readiness.”

Shalhoub further explained that “once Brooke came into my life, the rest of my life just improved so vastly, and so quickly, it was an immediate turnaround.”

After becoming husband and wife officially, the newlyweds moved around a lot, but they supported one another amid all the chaos with their careers.

INSIDE THE COUPLE’S MARRIAGE

After being happily married for 31 years, the couple shares two daughters, Josie, (whom Shalhoub later adopted) and 30-year-old Sophie, born in 1993, whom they adopted after they wed.

Adams is the younger sister of actress Lynne Adams, who lived with them for several years in the early days of their marriage. Lynne, 76, revealed that she would never marry in a dialogue that featured the couple. However, she changed her mind when she lived with the pair.

The 76-year-old previously shared that her sister and Shalhoub were compatible and seemed to like each other, adding they had fun together:

“Tony was so supportive of Brooke, he did a lot of stuff Brooke hated to do, and Brooke was the entertainer.”

While it was true, Shalhoub also acknowledged his wife’s duties in their marriage, saying when he worked, she took care of the children and held the family home together.

Lynne recalled the duo never fought or argued because they got along well and were good to each other. Shalhoub corrected her and said he and Adams did argue but that they did it in a “productive and loving way. “

In that sense, Lynne shared the twosome set an excellent example of what marriage looks like, and that was the reason why she went out looking for a husband herself. They changed her perception of marriage.

“Tony does everything in our marriage, which makes it easy for me. He does the shopping, cooking, paying the bills, earning money… what else? He gives me a massage, sometimes an occasional facial,” Adams gushed about her spouse.

According to her, the dad of two loves to clean, organize, and is also detail-oriented. Additionally, he loves fixing things, “he’s Mr. Fix-It on top of everything. Everybody tells me, ‘You’re so lucky to have married this guy,’” said the "Lace" star.

Not only are the lovebirds lucky to have each other, but they are also still overly in love as they still hold hands when they make public appearances together.

Shalhoub and Adams made a rare public appearance in March 2019 when they walked the red carpet at the Atlantic Theater Company Divas’ Choice Gala at the Plaza Hotel in NYC.

While there, the married couple was pictured in matching outfits as they made their way into the star-studded event, and when they stopped for photos, they held hands.