New York is looking good for Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, her husband, as they engage in a social outing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Bassett, 65, and Vance, 63, her husband of almost 26 years, were among the many celebrities who attended the opening night gala of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Dead Man Walking on Tuesday.
Both Bassett and Vance dressed in black for the formal occasion; Bassett accessorized her black dress with a giant black felt rose, while Vance wore a brown hat.
The opera’s opening night crowd included many friends and family members of the longstanding pair. A number of celebrities, including Jon Hamm and his wife Anna Osceola, Anne Hathaway, Sigourney Weaver, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts, and Peter Sarsgaard, walked the red carpet on Tuesday night before the program.
After meeting in the 1980s as students at Yale University, Bassett and Vance started dating in the early 1990s.
Bassett revealed to people in 2018 that “maybe about 14 years later” the two met again in Los Angeles. They were both looking for a relationship and discovered each other at the same moment. Finally married on October 12, 1997, the What’s Love Got to Do With It actress and Vance are parents to 17-year-old fraternal twins, Bronwyn Golden Vance and Slater Josiah Vance, who were born through surrogacy on January 27, 2006.
“He understands just empirically everything that I go through,” Bassett said of Vance in February, referring to their relationship. When things become overwhelming, he reminds me to take a step back and remember the big picture: life is fantastic, and we’re all simply trying our best to support one another.
Even though many Hollywood films have been shut down in recent months owing to the current Screen Actors Guild strike, Vance, who serves as president of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, has remained engaged in the entertainment scene.
Actor Dwayne Johnson, along with George and Amal Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, and Oprah Winfrey, among others, donated an undisclosed amount of money over the summer to the foundation’s Emergency Financial Assistance Fund to help many of the union’s 160,000 members with financial relief during the strike.
Vance will also be seen in the forthcoming true-crime film Heist 88, which will air on Showtime and Paramount+. Along with Vance’s major role, Bassett also served as a producer on the film via their firm, Bassett Vance Productions.
The first episode of Heist 88 will premiere on October 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, but it will be available to all Showtime and Paramount+ members on September 29 through streaming and on-demand.
