One of Darlene Cates’s most treasured belongings was a note. It was written by Leonardo DiCaprio after they wrapped up filming “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” in 1993. She was a first-time actress from Forney, Texas, who had never been in front of a camera before, and he was nineteen at the time. “You are the most special person I have ever met” , he said. “You’ll always be the best acting mother I’ve ever known. You were successful in your role. It’s the type of letter that reveals everything about a person, both the writer and the recipient.
Cates had arrived at the position in the most improbable manner. She was seen by screenwriter Peter Hedges in the “Too Heavy to Leave Their House” segment of a 1992 episode of “Sally Jessy Raphael”. She was talking candidly about her weight, her years of isolation, and the pelvic infection that had left her bedridden for two years and caused her to put on almost 150 pounds.
She weighed about 575 pounds at her heaviest. It had been years since she had left home. Nevertheless, Hedges perceived a warmth, directness, and emotional transparency in her on that TV screen that no amount of casting could replicate.
Director Lasse Hallström reportedly started to cry when he saw the footage. “She was almost a little girl trapped in this body”, Hedges later said. “There was a sweetness to her” . The role was expanded once they realized she could act. Cates herself seemed almost amused by how it all unfolded. “No one could’ve been more surprised than I was”, she told reporters, “because I was just a fat housewife in Forney, Texas, of all places”. Hallström reportedly threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, “Finally, somebody who can act”, as she started reading the script during her home audition.
What makes the Darlene Cates weight loss story so quietly profound is how inseparable her health was from every chapter of her life. When her husband Robert was deployed to Vietnam, she turned to food for solace, which is when her weight issues started. A thyroid condition and slow metabolism compounded the problem.
By the time pelvic infections left her bedridden for two years, the weight had climbed to nearly 600 pounds. She experienced suicidal thoughts and depression. She lived in near-total reclusion. It’s possible that without “Sally Jessy Raphael” and without Hedges watching that particular episode she might never have found a reason to step back into the world at all.
She had a short but genuine acting career. “Picket Fences” and “Touched by an Angel” were the next television roles. She kept track of when “Gilbert Grape” aired on television, she said, because she could always tell there would be a sudden rush of Facebook friend requests. For that movie, DiCaprio later received his first Oscar nomination. What Cates got instead was the realization that she had succeeded in something that most people would have thought was impossible.
After four surgeries and almost eleven months in the hospital the year before, she had dropped about 240 pounds by 2012, from 575 to about 331. Her diabetes had been conquered. Physical therapy had started. Even though she was still mostly confined to her bedroom and couldn’t walk, she was already talking about wanting more acting work one or two projects a year and about going to her grandson’s confirmation.
That year, on one of her infrequent outdoor excursions on Father’s Day, she and her grandson were unexpectedly surrounded by butterflies. According to her, it’s a gift from God given to someone who doesn’t spend much time outside. Reading that gave me the impression that, in spite of everything, she still had a sense of wonder.
She died in her sleep on March 26, 2017, at sixty-nine. DiCaprio referred to her as “the best acting mom I ever had the privilege of working alongside” in a tribute post. Her daughter made the announcement on Facebook in a quiet, intimate manner typical of those who spent the majority of their lives away from the public eye. The comedy “Billboard” that she had been working on would be released after her death.
The career that Darlene Cates had envisioned for herself was never fully realized. She had already accomplished the more difficult task: returning to the world.