When Kathryn Leigh Scott met Patrick Ralph Oster for the first time for lunch in February 2019, she was immediately drawn in by his eyes.
“They’re just alive and sparkly,” she said. “I thought, oh, this will be fun.”
Ms. Scott, 82, hadn’t been romantically interested in anyone since her husband had died from degenerative nerve disease in 2011, but she agreed to meet Mr. Oster at her friend Linda Yellin’s suggestion. On the surface, the purpose of the lunch at Mozzarella & Vino in Midtown Manhattan was for Mr. Oster and Ms. Scott to exchange notes on each other’s manuscripts. At the time, Ms. Scott was writing her novel, “September Girl,” and Mr. Oster was working on “The Obituary Writer: A Murder Novel.” But Ms. Scott knew Ms. Yellin had ulterior motives.
“Linda is quite the matchmaker,” Ms. Scott said.
Mr. Oster, 80, had also been reluctant to date after the death of his wife in 2017 from cancer; however, after some background research, he became intrigued by Ms. Scott, who has worked as an actress for more than 60 years, beginning with a role as Maggie Evans and Josette DuPres on the cult TV series, “Dark Shadows,” which aired from 1966 to 1971.
“I wasn’t crawling around the bars looking for love,” Mr. Oster said. “But I saw what Kathryn’s life story was and I thought, wait a minute, this could be more interesting than, ‘What do you think of Chapter 1?’”
Ms. Scott was born in Robbinsdale, Minn., and spent a few years after World War II living in Vikebukt, Norway, where her family was from. She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1964 and worked as a bunny at the Playboy Club in New York City starting in 1963 at age 19, an experience she wrote about in her 1998 book, “The Bunny Years,” for which she interviewed more than 200 other former Bunnies.
She has acted in “Star Trek,” “Magnum P.I.,” “Police Squad!” and “Dynasty” and many other TV shows and films, and written several books. She currently stars on a fiction podcast called “What Friends Do,” about members of the entertainment industry living in a retirement home.
Mr. Oster was born in Harvey, Ill., and studied philosophy at Loyola University Chicago before receiving a law degree from Cornell Law School. After a brief stint as a lawyer focused on antitrust and international trade, he began working as a journalist, first at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1973 as a criminal justice investigative reporter. In 1974, he joined U.S. News & World Report to cover the Supreme Court and justice department, before going back to the Chicago Sun-Times in 1977 to cover the same beat. In 1978, he became their bureau chief in Washington, D.C., covering the White House, foreign policy and the C.I.A. Eventually, in 1996, he became the editor in chief of The National Law Journal and then the managing editor for legal news at Bloomberg, from which he retired in 2015. He has written several novels, including, most recently, “The Man Who Fell in Love With His Wife: A Romantic Spy Novel.”
On her first date with Mr. Oster, Ms. Scott was charmed by the gifts he brought her: a baguette and a box of Neuhaus Chocolates. He found her as compelling in person as she had been on paper, and during lunch, they fell into an easy rhythm. They bonded over writing, their love of cooking and their experiences as end-of-life caregivers to their spouses.
“We both had very happy marriages,” Ms. Scott said. “I still have pictures of my husband displayed, and he still has pictures of his wife. They’re part of our lives.”
“Both spouses said, ‘When I go, go out and find someone else,’” Mr. Oster added.
After the manuscript-critique-turned-date, Mr. Oster walked Ms. Scott back to her Manhattan apartment.
“It felt right,” Ms. Scott said.
“I just knew this would work,” Mr. Oster said.
They embarked on a succession of museum and lunch dates (neither likes to eat dinner, preferring long, luxurious lunches instead). At one point, Mr. Oster invited Ms. Scott for a meal at his house in Croton-on-Hudson, where he impressed her with his knife skills as he prepared a boneless leg of lamb with braised fennel and fingerling potatoes. Ms. Scott also met Mr. Oster’s family, including his son, Alexander Oster. A few years ago, Alexander and his partner, Andrea Canova, welcomed a daughter.
“His son turned to me and said, ‘So, Grandma, is that what you’d like to be called?’” Ms. Scott said. “It was so wonderful.”
When the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the world, Ms. Scott decided to move in with Mr. Oster. They spent their time writing, cooking elaborate meals and dancing in the kitchen to jazz.
“We did a lot of grilling,” Mr. Oster said. “We have a stack of recipes we’ve printed out over time. Look at that, ‘Let’s make a duck ragù today.’”
For most of their relationship, Mr. Oster and Ms. Scott split their time between Mr. Oster’s house in Croton-on-Hudson and Ms. Scott’s second home in Beverly Hills. But at the end of 2024, while on vacation in County Mayo, Ireland, they learned from a friend who’s a real estate agent that their dream house in Croton-on-Hudson was going on the market.
The structure, built in 1907, was once a Japanese teahouse and a speakeasy during Prohibition. They had been peeking at it through a wrought-iron gate for several years.
“I said, ‘We want it, we’ll top the highest bid,’” Mr. Oster said. “We did the whole thing from Ireland, no inspection. When we got here, there were all sorts of surprises. ‘Oh, look at that, we have a pantry, we have a balcony, we have a hot tub, a second fireplace.’”
On their first visit to the house after the purchase, Mr. Oster turned to Ms. Scott and said it would be a great place to get married. She responded that she’d been thinking the same thing.
“I think that was the proposal,” Ms. Scott said. They celebrated with champagne.
The couple was married on June 21 — “At our age,” Ms. Scott said, the longest day of the year “seemed appropriate” — in front of 75 guests in their garden, overlooking the Croton River. “During the course of the day, we had bald eagles fishing in the river, with flyovers of heron and crane,” she said. Orlyn Kringstad, Ms. Scott’s brother, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church, officiated.
Ms. Scott’s friend of 60 years, Susan Sullivan, whom she met working at the Playboy Club, was meant to be her best woman. However, Ms. Sullivan was recovering from cancer treatment on the day of the wedding and was unable to make it.
“I had a good weep,” Ms. Scott said. “I love Susan, and I felt so bad.”
She asked her friend Maggie Contreras, who’d flown in from Ireland, to step in.
“Maggie was also our floral designer,” Ms. Scott said. “She flew over and jumped right in, coming up with a speech, building the wedding arch and designing the flowers for the table.”
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Ms. Scott’s friend, David Chaparro, a former restaurateur and private chef, prepared the wedding lunch, which included a summer squash and ricotta tart, poached salmon, and roast beef with Parmesan.
“David and his husband Tim married in my garden in Beverly Hills in 2008,” Ms. Scott said. “The moment I told him we were getting married, he said, ‘I’ll cook.’”
Ms. Scott wore a Victoria Beckham dress that she found at Nordstrom with Ms. Yellin.
“You don’t want to look like the mother of the bride, you want to look dazzling,” Ms. Scott said. “It fit me perfectly, and it had a 1930s look to it.”
She topped the dress with a 1930s tilt hat that she found on Etsy, and accessorized with pearls and a sølje, a Norwegian gold and silver brooch she’d inherited from her mother, as well as a gold bracelet her grandfather gave her grandmother on their wedding day in 1913. Mr. Oster wore a vintage double-breasted Dior tuxedo that he bought on eBay.
During the ceremony, Mr. Oster’s son, who was his best man, pointed out that the couple’s dog, an Airedale Terrier named Gemma, was quietly watching from the top of the stairs. Mr. Oster and Ms. Scott walked each other down the aisle, and they wrote their own vows.
“I said, and this is a quote, ‘I look forward to enjoying the rest of my life with you, to honor, love, cherish, support, encourage you and to make you laugh,’” Ms. Scott said.
Mr. Oster kept his short. “I’m not one for these sappy types of vows,” he said. “All I’m going to say is, I’m a lucky guy to get Kathryn, and I won’t screw it up.”
On This Day
When June 21, 2025
Where Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Live Tunes Ms. Scott’s friend, Molly Ryan, led a musical trio that included a clarinetist and pianist. They performed songs by some of Ms. Scott and Mr. Oster’s favorite musicians, like Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. “The music was fabulous,” Ms. Scott said.
Nod to Norway Because of Ms. Scott’s Norwegian roots, her nephew, Tom Kringstad and his wife, Barbara Kringstad, prepared a kransekake, a traditional Norwegian cake composed of almond and meringue rings, for dessert.
Giving Away the Bride When Ms. Scott’s brother, Mr. Kringstad, asked who was giving Ms. Scott’s hand in marriage, her friends and family spontaneously shouted, “We do!” All the guests began laughing, Ms. Scott said, so her brother extended the joke, asking who was giving Mr. Oster’s hand in marriage. His guests stood up and shouted, “We do!”
The post For Two Octogenarians, First Came Romance, Then a Dream Home appeared first on New York Times.
