When Marlee Matlin was twelve, she walked up to Henry Winkler after a performance at a Chicago center for deaf children and told him she wanted to be an actress in Hollywood, just like him. He didn’t know American Sign Language and knew almost nothing about deaf culture, but he looked at her and said not to let anyone tell her it was impossible. Her mother, worried about how hard the industry would be for a deaf girl, pulled him aside and asked him to discourage the idea. He told her she was talking to the wrong person. They stayed in touch. Eight years later, at twenty-one, Matlin stood on the Academy Awards stage holding the Oscar for Best Actress for Children of a Lesser God—the first deaf performer to win in an acting category. The win brought sudden fame and, privately, a hard stretch that included rehab and the end of a difficult relationship. She showed up at the Winklers’ door and asked if she could stay for the weekend. Henry and his wife Stacey said yes. What was supposed to be a couple of days turned into two years. They treated her like family: family dinners, ordinary expectations, a guest house that became a place to rebuild. She has called Henry a second father ever since. In 1993 she married Kevin Grandalski in the Winklers’ backyard. The friendship never turned into a Hollywood transaction. Decades later it still shows up in ordinary ways—mentorship, encouragement, the simple fact that someone had believed her long before the industry had any reason to. The person who changed her life was not the one who handed her a trophy. It was the one who opened the door when she needed a safe place to stand.❤️

Before Luke Skywalker ever raised a lightsaber, Mark Hamill was a working actor who still had to schedule his own dental cleanings. One afternoon in mid-1970s Westwood, he sat in a waiting room and noticed the hygienist who would eventually call his name. Marilou York had no idea the patient in front of her was about to spend the next half-century as one of the most recognizable faces in movies. He was interested right away. She was polite and professionally unimpressed. They went out anyway. Their first date was a screening of Annie Hall. Not long after, Mark brought her to an early cut of the science-fiction film he had just finished. While the rest of the small audience watched spaceships and laser blasts, Marilou leaned over during a close-up of a background character and whispered that the actor had bad caps. Mark was charmed. When Star Wars opened in May 1977, the ordinary young actor became, almost overnight, a global symbol. The sudden attention pulled him away from the relationship. Years later he would admit he felt he needed to experience the groupies and the fame for himself. The novelty of being wanted by strangers, however, turned out to be a poor substitute for being known by one person who had met him when he was still just another client in a dental chair. They found their way back. On December 17, 1978, they married in a quiet ceremony at their house in Malibu with only a handful of friends present. No red carpet, no industry spectacle—just the two of them deciding the rest of their lives would be spent together. They later had three children: Nathan, Griffin, and Chelsea. Decades afterward, the younger two would appear on screen in the same galaxy their father had helped introduce to the world. Nearly forty-eight years later, the marriage has outlasted the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, and every wave of fame that followed. Mark once marked an anniversary with a characteristically short line that still captures the whole story: she cleaned his teeth, and the rest is history. Millions know him as the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. The part of his life that never made the posters is simpler and, in its way, rarer: he chose the woman who had already known him when nobody else did.

She loved him. He left. Forty years later, she was the one who came when he couldn’t breathe. In the early 1980s, Val Kilmer was 21 and still mostly known for stage work. Cher was in her mid-thirties and already a global star. A mutual friend approached him in a New York restaurant and said Cher wanted to meet him. Kilmer said no—he didn’t think they would have anything in common. He went anyway. By the end of the night, she was on the back of his Harley. The age gap drew attention. They ignored it. They laughed at the same things, gave each other private nicknames (Sid and Ethel) so they could call across a room without turning heads, and later used the more elaborate versions Valus Maximus and Cherus Reprimandus. Her children, Chaz and Elijah, liked him. For roughly two years, it worked. Around 1984, Kilmer ended it. Cher later said plainly that she had been madly in love with him and that he was the one who left. In Hollywood, that is usually the end of the story. This one continued. They stayed friends. They kept the nicknames. They texted and emailed for decades, even when they didn’t see each other often. Then, in the mid-2010s, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer. Treatment, including a tracheotomy, permanently changed his voice. Cher offered him a place to stay in her guest house. One night he woke up vomiting blood, called 911, and then called for her. She came. In his memoir he wrote simply that Cher “stepped in and stepped up.” Even then, covered in blood and waiting for help, he looked at her and wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. She laughed. In 2021 he released a documentary about his life and illness. Cher watched it and wrote to him. The note was addressed to Sid and signed Ethel. Val Kilmer died on April 1, 2025, at 65. The next day Cher said goodbye using the name she had called him for more than forty years. Their romance lasted about two years. The friendship lasted the rest of his life. Some people leave. Some people keep a key. ❤️