Obituary protocol requires that when a person dies you can never give him/her the “Bob Clark treatment**.” 15 years ago I was slapped around for precisely this offense.
When William Hurt passed last Sunday (3.13) I had nothing but love and fond memories in my heart and my copy reflected that. But the feelings of Hurt’s former live-in lover, CODA costar Marlee Matlin, were presumably mixed, certainly to go by her memoir “I’ll Scream Later.”
Matlin wrote that Hurt was a bit of a brutalist. Emotional and physical abuse (i.e., bruises) and even an incident of domestic rape while Hurt was filming Broadcast News, happened between them, most of it generated by Hurt. Hurt and Matlin were both apparently guilty of “considerable” drug abuse.
I’m also presuming that some #MeToo brigade types (like The Daily Beast‘s Amy Zimmerman) are persuaded that Hurt-in-his-heyday was an abusive prick and could even be described as satanic.
Hurt and Matlin were lovers for roughly a three-year period — late ’85 (when filming began on Children of a Lesser God) to sometime in mid to late ’88. They lived together for two years. Born on 3.20.50, Hurt was 15 years older than Matlin, who was born on 8.24.65.
Wiki excerpt: “In 1986, after Matlin won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Children of a Lesser God, Hurt reportedly asked her to consider what it meant to win the Oscar after just one film, when others won only after many years of hard work.
“‘What makes you think you deserved it, Marlee?’, Hurt allegedly asked in the limo after the Oscar telecast. ‘There are hundreds of actors who have worked for years for the recognition you just got handed to you. Think about that.'”
That wasn’t a very nice thing to say in the wake of Marlin’s big win. Hurt’s point, I presume, was that she won more for social-political-cultural reasons (i.e., the novelty of her being a deaf actress) than for the skill and chops that went into her performance.
But all Oscar wins are about “the narrative”, of course, and especially about being across-the-board likable. It was nonetheless mean of Hurt to try and denigrate her achievement.
In response to Matlin’s accusations about Hurt, particular those that aired on CNN on 4.13.08, Hurt issued a statement: “My own recollection is that we both apologized and both did a great deal to heal our lives. Of course, I did and do apologize for any pain I caused. And I know we have both grown. I wish Marlee and her family nothing but good.”