Marlee Matlin attends the 2024 Oscars Governor Awards | Image: Instagram/@themarleematlin Amid the release of the 2025 Oscar nominations , Marlee Matlin, the first deaf performer to win an Academy Award in 1987, recalled the “abuse” she experienced from her ex-boyfriend, the late actor William Hurt, in a new documentary. In “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 23, the actress revealed that she experienced “a habit of abuse” in the hands of Hurt.
The duo starred in the 1986 film “Children of a Lesser God,” where Matlin received her first Oscar for Best Actress; Hurt was also nominated for Best Actor at the time. Hurt, who died in 2022, presented Matlin her Academy Award at the 1987 Oscar ceremony, a moment the latter recalled in the documentary, detailing how her “traumatic relationship” with the actor overshadowed her victory. “I was afraid as I walked up the stairs to get the Oscar.
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—!’,” she recalled, adding how cold Hurt reacted when they were alone later that night. Matlin shared 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,” she expressed.
Matlin’s sign-language interpre.
