Darlene Cates
Rita Darlene Cates (born December 13, 1947 in Borger , Texas - † March 26, 2017 in Forney , Texas) was an American actress .
Life
Cates grew up as the daughter of housewife Dorothy Ann Pfrimmer and tank attendant Truman Madison Guthrie in Dumas , Texas. Her parents divorced when she was 12 years old. Two years later she met her future husband; she hid her age of only 14 from him. On January 11, 1963, the dissimilar couple finally married.
In her early years, Cates sought solace in food. A thyroid dysfunction and a slow metabolism significantly increased weight gain. In 1981 she was put in a gastric band with a weight equivalent to 153 kilograms and she lost about 37 kilograms. Starting in 1986, Cates could not get out of bed for almost two years due to health reasons. Because she was bedridden, she eventually weighed more than 200 kilograms.
Darlene Cates and her husband Bob have a daughter and two sons.
Career
Cates made her film debut in Lasse Hallström's film Gilbert Grape - Somewhere in Iowa , in which she plays the morbidly obese mother of the title character, played by Depp, alongside Johnny Depp , Juliette Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio . Cates was selected for the role of Bonnie Grape after writer Peter Hedges watched a taping of Sally Jessy Raphael's talk show "Too Hard to Leave Your House" in which Cates escaped from her self-imposed prison for illness and Obesity reported. She described her weight in a later interview as "around 550 pounds" (equivalent to about 250 kilograms).
This was followed by television roles in hit series like Picket Fences - Tatort garden fence and Touched by an Angel and a cameo appearance in the show Wolfgirl the USA Network . The television producer J. Miles Dale had to fly part of the film crew and the two young leading actors Dov Tiefenbach and Victoria Sanchez from Romania to Texas to shoot the scenes with Cates.
Filmography (selection)
- 1993: Gilbert Grape - Somewhere in Iowa (What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
- 1994: Picket Fences - Tatort garden fence (Picket Fences)
- 1996: Touched by an Angel (Touched by an Angel)
- 2001: Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl)
Web links
- Darlene Cates in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Darlene Cates, star of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, dies aged 69. In: dailymail.co.uk. March 28, 2017, accessed March 29, 2017.
- ↑ Lynne Murray: Darlene Cates Interview. In: maadwomen.com. (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cates, Darlene |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cates, Rita Darlene; Guthrie, Rita Darlene |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | US-american actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 13, 1947 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Borger , Texas , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 26, 2017 |
| Place of death | Forney , Texas , United States |