Julianna Margulies had a complicated home life as a teen, but she found love and safety in her older boyfriend — whom she met through playing soccer.
“When I was 15, I was an only child for the first time in my life cause my middle sister went to college and when I came home after a summer job to start my sophomore year in high school, my mother was living with a 21-year-old man in our house,” Margulies, 58, recalled during the Tuesday, October 1, episode of Sony Music Entertainment’s “Origins With Cush Jumbo” podcast.
It was at that point that the Good Wife actress realized that she was “on my own and I had to figure out what my life was going to be.” Margulies decided to be “really studious” so she could get into college and “get the hell out of there” and away from her mom’s revolving door of boyfriends.
After living in England with her mom, they relocated to New Hampshire, which is where she met Kewel McQuaid, who was four and a half years older than her. McQuaid was the assistant soccer coach — a senior when she was a freshman — and a close friend of the coach, Tony DiOrio, who knew Margulies and previously dated her mother.
The ER alum remembered having a “massive crush” on McQuaid and after having dinners with coach DiOrio and McQuaid — to avoid being home with her mom and new boyfriend — she formed a connection with him.
“I was 15 and I didn’t have a car and so Kewel would drive me home and on those drives we would talk, and I fell madly in love with him,” Margulies confessed. “He really anchored my life there because he was a good guy. He was crazy about me.”
Julianna Margulies and Keith Lieberthal Taylor Hill/WireImage
While she acknowledged that their romance was “a little imbalanced,” McQuaid was her anchor during a time of turmoil.
“I mean, he had his own house, for crying out loud. And he was a mechanic, so nothing was a bigger turn on to me living with a woman who could never fix anything or do it,” Margulies said of McQuaid. “Here I was living with a man who built his own house. His car would break down and be like, ‘Hold on one minute, honey’ and he’d like tinker under the hood and fix it.”
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McQuaid also rode a motorcycle, which he drove to pick her up from high school, which added to his “cool” factor.
“I really thank him because I’m sure for him he was a gorgeous guy who could have been dating anyone, but anyway, it got me through high school,” Margulies told podcast host Cush Jumbo, revealing she and McQuaid dated for five years.
Looking back the actress said, “I think literally he and his friends became my safe haven.”
McQuaid wasn’t the only prize in their relationship, Margulies called herself a “good” influence on him and his friends because she didn’t drink.
Lockhart Gardner: Attorneys at Law. The Good Wife premiered on CBS in 2009 and starred Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles, Christine Baranski, Matt Czuchry and Archie Panjabi. While the legal and political drama ran for seven seasons, Charles (Will Gardner) and Panjabi (Kalinda Sharma) both exited the series before the 2016 finale. Charles, for his part, […]
“My stepmother was an alcoholic. I could not bear to see people drunk,” Margulies explained. “I was so grossed out by it all that I didn’t drink.”
That outlook led to Margulies always being McQuaid’s safe driver. “All these boys were drinking beer at the parties, and I drove everyone home at 15 without a license,” she concluded.
After Margulies’ relationship with McQuaid came to an end she blazed her own trail in the acting world, starring on ER from 1994 to 2000, The Good Wife from 2009 to 2016 and The Morning Show from 2021 to 2023. She’s won three Emmys, one for ER in 1995 and two for The Good Wife in 2011 and 2014.
Relationship wise, Margulies dated actor Ron Eldard from 1991 to 2003. She found her forever love in attorney Keith Lieberthal, whom she wed in 2007. The couple share one son, Kieran, 16.
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