On Christmas Eve, 1935 in Yuma, Arizona, Colbert married Dr Joel Pressman, who eventually became a professor and chief of the head and neck surgery department of UCLA Medical School. She gave a Beechcraft single-engine airplane to Pressman as a present. They purchased a ranch in Northern California, where Colbert enjoyed horseback riding and her husband kept show cattle. During this time, Colbert drove a Lincoln Continental and a Ford Thunderbird. The marriage lasted 33 years, until Pressman's death from liver cancer in 1968.