But for Ms. Blatt, many of those same years unraveled in a less-satisfying way, as she began wondering if Mr. Engelberg was as passionate about her as he was about his favorite pastimes. In 1992, she made a decision that would get her much closer to him, at least geographically. She purchased a house near his, a half-mile above the Sunset Strip. But her new ZIP code, albeit glamorous, delivered nary a romantic spark.  “We would spend occasional weekends at his house, never at mine,” Ms. Blatt said. “He was a wonderful man, but he was very busy and stuck in his ways, and he became romantically aloof.  “Though we always had a nice time together, all I really kept waiting to hear from Mort were the words ‘I love you.’”  The longer she went without hearing it, the more frustrated she became. More hurt than angry, she began dating other people, as did he, though they never stopped dating each other.  “He was so noncommittal that I wasn’t going to sit home and wait for him,” Ms. Blatt said. “I was out there looking for someone more normal, someone who wanted to have a real relationship, but I never found anyone I really liked.”  “No one ever measured up to Mort,” she added. “No one could entertain me and make me laugh the way he could.”  She brought up the time in the late 1990s when Mr. Engelberg wore a particular outfit that she was not impressed with, and asked him to “find something else that matched.”  “I’ll have you know that I wore these same clothes when I met with Boris Yeltsin in Russia last week, and he didn’t seem to mind it a bit,” Mr. Engelberg said to her. “I also wore it recently at 10 Downing Street, and Tony Blair also seemed fine with it.”  But the laughs became fewer as the years rolled past. While Ms. Blatt waited for those three words that seemed as if they would never come, her mother died in 1994 and her father died the year after.  The seasons kept changing, and she became a grandmother.  “My mother loved Mort, and I would always go to her and complain about his lack of affection,” Ms. Blatt said. “But one of the last things she told me before she died was: ‘Hang in there. Mort’s a good man, and he loves you. He’s worth waiting for.’”  But she grew tired of waiting.  “At a certain point, I figured I would never become Mrs. Engelberg,” she said. “Nevertheless, Mort owed me at least one answer.”  In 2004, a year marked by the death of her matchmaking sister, Jean, Ms. Blatt finally took a stand, confronting her longtime partner on a day when she was leaving his house to have minor surgery.  “I have something to ask you,” she said, her voice beginning to crack as she recalled the moment: “Do you love me?”  Mr. Engelberg, more than a bit stunned, responded with a simple yes.  “Well,” she said to him, “do you mind saying it once in a while?”  That brief but difficult exchange, Ms. Blatt said, turned the tide of their relationship.  “Since then, Mort has been a totally different person, he’s just been terrific,” she said. “He’s much more romantic and pays much more attention to me these days; he doesn’t just tell me how much he loves me, he shows me how much he loves me.”  He showed her in 2008, when he asked her to move in with him and then built an addition to his home so that her four granddaughters had a place to stay when they visited.  That year, Ms. Blatt, energized by her newfound love, began to think about removing that warning label that came with Mr. Engelberg.  “I know I had said years earlier that I didn’t care about getting married again, but things change in a woman’s life,” she said. “I loved Mort, and I wanted to leave this earth as Mrs. Engelberg.”  Mr. Engelberg also had a change of heart, and he honored Ms. Blatt’s request to be married on her 75th birthday. But staying true to his behind-the-scenes nature, he requested that their wedding be “a low-key affair,” so low in fact, that even Mr. Clinton did not receive advance notice.  But Mr. Clinton was a step ahead of his advance man.  “I promoted this marriage for years,” Mr. Clinton said in an email. “I even tried the ‘married people live longer’ line, which lost steam as time passed. Mort and I have been friends forever, and I love Helaine. Just hope they’ll still play cards with me.”  They were married July 27 at the Beverly Hills Courthouse in the company of Ms. Blatt’s two daughters, Dana Kaufman and Stephanie Staffieri. Two of Ms. Blatt’s longtime friends from New York, Barbara Jacobs and Joyce Blumenthal, were also present, as was a former co-worker and friend, Deanna Dominguez.  All five guests, who were lured to the courthouse thinking they were going to meet Mr. Clinton at a fund-raiser there, burst into tears the moment they realized they were actually Ms. Blatt’s wedding guests.  “Oh my God, this is where people get married!” Ms. Kaufman shouted when she entered the courthouse. “Mom’s getting married! Mom’s getting married!”  Soon after, Eric Gordon, a civil officiant, told the couple, “I pronounce you married under the laws of the State of California,” to which Mr. Engelberg jokingly replied, “I thought this was all about a traffic ticket.”  Later in the day, the couple and their guests, joined by a friend, the producer Paul Maslansky, shared a celebratory brunch at Nate ’n Al, a nearby delicatessen.  The potato pancakes went to Mr. Engelberg.  The egg-white omelet went to Mrs. Engelberg.  Noah Gilbert contributed reporting from Beverly Hills, Calif.  ON THIS DAYWhen July 27, 2016Where Beverly Hills Courthouse in California. Fitting Tribute After exchanging vows, Ms. Blatt celebrated her 75th birthday that evening with 35 of her closest female friends at Craft, a restaurant in Los Angeles. As they entered, each guest walked past a 6-foot-2 cardboard cutout of Mr. Engelberg, who did not attend. “One way or the other, I had to have my groom there,” Ms. Blatt said, laughing.Never Say Never “I never thought that I’d get to this point in my life,” Mr. Engelberg, a lifelong bachelor, said after marrying Ms. Blatt, his girlfriend of 26 years. “It just never seemed in the cards.”In Advance Mr. Engelberg did his most recent advance work for Bill Clinton in April at an event at the University of California, Berkeley, regarding the Clinton Global Initiative, a New York organization that pursues innovative solutions to world problems. Asked if he would be willing to serve as an advance man for Hillary Clinton if she became the next president, Mr. Engelberg replied, “I’m available if she needs me.”  Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion, and Vows), and Instagram.  A version of this article appears in print on August 7, 2016, on page ST11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Hollywood Ending (Just Wait 26 Years). Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Mort Engelberg, not a marrying man, and Helaine Blatt, who “didn’t need to get married,” dated for 26 years before their wedding.