Background
Rita Darlene Guthrie was born in Borger, Texas, to Dorothy Ann (née Pfrimmer) and Truman Madison Guthrie. At 12 her parents divorced, which changed her life dramatically, "I didn't get over it till I was over 40 and there are some aspects that haunt me still. But, I do believe in 'moving on'." She grew up in Dumas, Texas, 50 miles north of Amarillo.
In her early years, she took solace in food. Her overeating, compounded by a thyroid condition and slow metabolism, led to obesity. She underwent gastroplasty in 1981 when she weighed 410 pounds and lost 100 pounds afterwards, but eventually gained the weight back plus more, topping out at 550 pounds. In 1986, pelvic infections due to her weight problems kept her bedridden for two years, during which she gained an additional 150 pounds.
Author and screenwriter Peter Hedges saw a tape of Darlene on a 1985 episode of Sally Jessy Raphael entitled, "Too Heavy to Leave Their House." On the show, she spoke of her self-imposed imprisonment. Hedges, writer of What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) offered her the role of the morbidly obese mother in the film, which she accepted.
In 1992, she received her high school diploma via correspondence courses and emerged from her house after a five-year period of reclusion.
Read more about this topic: Darlene Cates
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