William Hurt and Marlee Matlin in 1987.Photo:Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty
A new documentary aboutMarlee Matlin’s life includes details about her difficult relationship withWilliam Hurt, her costar in the 1986 filmChildren of a Lesser God.
Matlin, 59, recalls “a habit of abuse” with her then boyfriend in director Shoshannah Stern’s revealing documentaryMarlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, which premiered at theSundance Film Festivalon Thursday, Jan. 23.
Hurt, who died in 2022 at age 71, was 35 and Matlin was 19 when she was cast in her feature film debut, a screen adaptation of the hit Mark Medoff play about a deaf woman’s romantic relationship with a hearing speech teacher. Hurtpresented her with the Academy Awardfor best actress at the 1987Oscarceremony, a moment Matlin sheds further light on in the documentary.
“I was afraid as I walked up the stairs to get the Oscar,” she recalls in an on-camera interview with Stern. “I was afraid because I knew in my gut that he wasn’t happy. Because I saw the look on his face and my thought was, ‘S—!’ ”
Marlee Matlin and William Hurt in ‘Children of a Lesser God’.Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection
Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection
Matlin has previously revealed that Hurt, who was also nominated forChildren of a Lesser Godbut did not win, reacted coldly when they were alone later that night. (Hurt had won the best actor Oscar the year before forKiss of the Spider Woman.)
In Dave Karger’s book50 Oscar Nights, sherecalls what Hurt told her. “ ‘So you have that little man there next to you. What makes you think you deserve it?’ I looked at him like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘A lot of people work a long time, especially the ones you were nominated with, for a lot of years to get what you got with one film.’ "
Not Alone Anymorereplays Matlin’s Oscar-winning moment (which made her the youngest and only deaf winner in the best actress category’s history) after stories of Hurt’s physical abuse from her sign-language interpreter Jack Jason andChildren of a Lesser Goddirector Randa Haines. Matlin explains that after kissing Hurt onstage and approaching the podium she “didn’t take the Oscar from him right away” out of fear. “I wish it were different. I wish I had shown my joy. But I was afraid because he was standing right there.”
In his on-camera interview, Jason details an incident on a private plane in which Matlin emerged from a room with Hurt with a black eye. Haines recalls seeing bruises on Matlin’s skin while directing the couple inChildren of a Lesser God.
“I could see that they were having arguments, fights,” she says in her interview. “I remember once noticing a bruise. But I didn’t know. Nobody felt that they had license to enter into a private relationship or comment on it or ask questions about it.”
Haines, 79, also remembers how Hurt “would tell a joke and turn his back to [Matlin] so that she couldn’t see. I tried to understand what was going on. But I saw that she was suffering from it.”
Marlee Matlin in 2024.Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
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After using up every bit of cocaine and marijuana she had in her New York apartment, Matlin added, she checked herself into the Betty Ford Center, paying for her own interpreter as the rehabilitation clinic’s first deaf patient.
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymorechronicles the inroads Matlin made for the deaf community in the years following her historic Oscar win. After her 2021 filmCODAwon three Academy Awards — including best picture and best supporting actor forTroy Kotsur, a deaf actor — Matlin said in a speech that she was now “not alone anymore” as the only deaf Oscar-winning actor.
source: people.com
