Two weeks ago tonight the news broke that actor William Hurt had died of whatever it was, cancer or something. To many of us millennial-aged he’s a bit player in the Marvel movies, being the representative of the US government always trying to rein in those wacky Avengers. Otherwise his filmography is largely an abstraction, with movies like Broadcast News and Kiss of The Spider Woman (which isn’t a Marvel movie and has nothing to do with Spider-Man) that we guess were well received at the time but aren’t exactly on the level of Rocky, Indiana Jones, Scarface, Aliens, The Terminator, Predator, so on and so forth. You know, actual classics from the 80s.
Not an overrated piece of shit like The Big Chill.
So now this Sunday is the Academy Awards, and all the “buzz” (such a douchey word) is about a film called CODA, the title being an acronym for “Child of Deaf Adult(s)” about a hearing-abled teen girl and her eccentric deaf family, her mother played by actress Marlee Matlin, who is deaf IRL.
Matlin may be the most famous differently abled person in Hollywood. She’s the only one to have ever won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for 1986’s Children of a Lesser God (there’s another one of those titles that sounds like it was a fictional movie from Seinfeld like Prognosis Negative or The Other Side of Darkness), which was a hell of an accomplishment at 21 – in her first ever film role. Here’s William Hurt, her co-star in the movie, announcing Matlin as the winner:
The rode the limo together after the show, since Hurt, then 37, and Matlin, then 21, were in a relationship after their on-screen romance in Children of a Lesser God spilled into real life.
Per Matlin’s autobiography, Hurt did not kiss her congratulations, or shared how he felt – because he himself had won the top honor just a few years earlier for the Spider-Girl movie – instead he said “What makes you think you deserve it? There are hundreds of actors who have worked for years for the recognition you just got handed to you. Think about that.”
What kind of fucking asshole talks to a woman – a much younger, more vulnerable woman he’s supposed to love and protect – like that after she’s just won the biggest accomplishment in her life? It gets even worse: Later that same year while filming Broadcast News, Matlin says Hurt came home shitfaced and forced himself on her at 4:30 AM while Matlin was sleeping. He was physically abusive to her as well, giving her a black eye after she flew to meet him on set of some other piece of shit movie being filmed in Europe. All of this is in the Daily Beast’s coverage of Hurt’s death – and the other abuse accusations against him from other women he was with over the years.
As of this writing CODA has already won two of the Academy Awards it was nominated for – Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur (who plays the father in the film) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Director Siân Heder (adapted as CODA is a remake of a French film) with the final Best Picture award still pending. Marlee Matlin is not personally nominated for either of the acting awards, but she already got hers. Hope she’s having a good time tonight. She’s worked for this for years.