‘NCIS’ Star Mark Harmon Reveals Why He and His Wife Pam Dawber Keep a Low Profile
‘NCIS’ Star Mark Harmon Reveals Why He and His Wife Pam Dawber Keep a Low Profile
Mark Harmon has built an incredible fan base for his portrayal of Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS. And while he left the franchise in late 2021, Mark made the ultimate announcement when he said he’d reprise Gibbs in season 3 of the prequel series NCIS: Origins, which premieres October 6 on CBS.
Of course, Gibbs has experienced heartbreak in love and family. But in real life, Harmon was fortunate to share a different kind of relationship with his wife of 39 years, actress Pam Dawber.
Pam’s last acting credit was on NCIS as a “seasoned investigative journalist” named Marcie Warren in 2021; she previously starred alongside Robin Williams in the Happy Days spinoff Mork & Mindy and the sitcom My Sister Sam. Around the same time, Mark earned roles on the soap opera Flamingo Road and medical drama St. Elsewhere. Mark was named People‘s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1986.
Closer Weekly reported in 2021 that a mutual friend introduced the two in the mid-80s. Mark later told People in November 2023 that they were originally meant to meet in a group setting, but that didn’t exactly sit well with him. Instead, he cold-called Pam and asked her out directly.
“I said, ‘Can I just call? Can I get a number and just cold call?’ And so I did,” he told the outlet at the time. “I got the number, and I called, and I got an answering machine. And I started to leave a message that said, ‘We don’t have to all go out. We could get a cup of coffee or something.’ And then she was monitoring and she picked up. We went out that night and we’re together ever since.”
Exactly a year after their first date on March 21, 1987, Pam and Mark were married in a school chapel in the Studio City area of San Fernando Valley, California. The newlyweds then jetted off to Vancouver, British Columbia, for their honeymoon, where Mark was also filming the TV movie After the Promise.
The couple welcomed their first son, Sean Thomas, on April 25, 1988, and a second son, Ty Christian, on June 25, 1992.
In May 2025, Mark and Pam quietly became grandparents with the birth of their grandson Cooper Knox, whose parents are Sean and his wife, Courtney Prather.
While Mark and Pam have mostly stayed out of the spotlight, they do attend red carpet events here and there. But as Mark told TV Insider in 2017, he isn’t purposefully avoiding talking about his wife and their marriage—they’re just inherently private people.
“It’s not even a choice,” he told the outlet then. “It’s who we are. We stay home. A lot. I’m not a Twitter guy or a Facebook guy. Our sons aren’t into that either. Pam and I have both made a living in this business, and still, there’s a part of that that’s just not natural.”
Pam told Entertainment Tonight in 2016 that she decided not to act full time while raising their two sons. Her last long-term gig was voicing Perdy in the animated 101 Dalmatians: The Series show in 1998.
“I was in a number one show. I had my own deal. I got to do Broadway. I got to do musical theater. I got to do cartoon voices,” Pam said at the time. “I did everything you can do in this business, and then I had children and it’s like, ‘I’m not going to chase this fame thing.'”
