Paul Schrader Makes First Comment Following Death of Wife Mary Beth Hurt

Mary Beth Hurt, Paul Schrader, and Sam Schrader attend the Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., on Feb. 23, 2019. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Mary Beth Hurt, the Tony-nominated actress who starred in such films as Interiors, Six Degrees of Separation, Chilly Scenes of Winter and The World According to Garp, died Saturday in New Jersey after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015. Her husband, filmmaker Paul Schrader, offered his first comments about her passing with a brief post on Facebook, where he has long shared his unfiltered takes on life, film and his Hollywood career.

“NOVEMBER 23, 1978. My father kept a meticulous and finely printed daily journal. On Thanksgiving 1978 he wrote simply ‘Joan died 12:20 am.’ Nothing more. Joan was his wife and my mother. He was made of stern stuff. I’ve looked at this entry over the years and wondered how I’d feel in his place. Now I’m in that place,” Schrader shared on Monday afternoon.

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It’s the first post since her passing about his longtime wife, whom he married in Chicago in August 1983. Together they had two children, Molly and Sam, and they collaborated on the big screen in four films directed by Schrader: Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), The Walker (2007) and Adam Resurrected (2008). Since Hurt was diagnosed, Schrader was her primary caretaker, and he even moved into the assisted living facility, The Coterie, in New York City in order to be near her.

After her passing, their daughter, Molly, paid tribute to her mother on Instagram.

“Yesterday morning we lost my mom, Mary Beth, to Alzheimer’s after a decade long battle with the disease. She was an actress, a wife, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend, and she took on all those rolls with grace and a kind ferocity. Although we’re grieving there is some comfort in knowing she is no longer suffering and is reunited with her sisters in peace,” she wrote.