Home Is Far From Hollywood

Actor Jeff Daniels Lives Life To The Fullest In Michigan Hometown

(CBS)  Jeff Daniels, the actor, singing? Turns out, he's pretty good at
poking fun at himself, and Hollywood celebrity before a hometown crowd.

But then, Jeff Daniels has always taken the long view of Hollywood, for the last 20 years, from about 2000 miles away, in the little town of Chelsea, Michigan, where he and his wife Kathleen both grew up and where they chose to raise their family, learns CBS News correspondent Mika Brzezinski.

"This was home to us, and Kathleen and I just said, this is what we're gonna do," Jeff says.

"I don't know if we could have made it in Hollywood, our marriage really," Kathleen adds.

Kathleen was only 20-years-old when she married a young actor just starting out.

That was 27 years ago.

Just the other night he was home, and it was a blizzard. And he said to one of our kids -- I think it was Luke – 'You know, this is what makes me the happiest.' It's where he is, you know, home," Kathleen says.

"It was an enormous gamble. We moved back to Chelsea in 1986. I fully expected the career to end," Jeff says, adding, "I've always been fatalistic about this whole thing. And it didn't."

From his early successes in "Terms of Endearment" and "Purple Rose of Cairo" to heart warming tales like "Fly Away Home to "The Hours," with Meryl Streep, Jeff Daniels is known as one of the most versatile actors around, and one of the most respected.