W hat’s eating Leo and Johnny?
Sources tell The National ENQUIRER superstars Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp have turned their backs on the morbidly obese actress who played their mother in the 1993 film “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”
Darlene Cates now weighs 500 pounds, and while she became a surrogate mom to Leo and Johnny during filming, both ignored her requests for a 20th anniversary reunion, said an insider.
“Darlene was heartbroken,” said the source. “The movie has always meant so much to her. To not have Leo and Johnny answer her calls was devastating. Privately, she took it hard. She felt like they’d snubbed her.”
In “Gilbert Grape,” Darlene played a grossly overweight shut-in who never bounced back from her husband’s suicide.
Leo, 39, played her mentally challenged son and earned his first Oscar nomination. But his recent snub of Darlene, 66, seems to contradict both his and Johnny’s previously warm feelings for her.
After wrapping filming, Leo wrote Darlene: “You are the most special person I have ever (met). I’ll always remember you as the best acting mamma I ever had.”
And in a 2004 interview, Johnny, 51, said: “I have great, very great, strong feelings for Darlene. She’s a wonderful woman, an amazing woman. Yeah, I love her very much.” He went on to say, “I’ll track you down, you track me down, and let’s see how you are doing.”But, apparently, that was all lip service. Darlene has lived in the same house in Forney, Texas, for 35 years, and a TV program easily tracked her down about the potential “Gilbert Grape” retrospective, said the source. And despite numerous phone calls and emails from Darlene’s caretaker about the reunion, neither actor nor their reps responded, claims the source.
Meanwhile, Darlene is struggling with her weight and other health issues. In 2012, she dropped from 575 to 331 pounds, and hoped to lose 100 more, said the source.
Instead, she regained most of the weight, has trouble getting around and sleeps with a breathing machine.
She rides an electric scooter while doing her monthly shopping at Wal-mart, and sleeps hooked up to a breathing machine. “When Darlene’s caretaker reached out to Johnny and Leo, he asked, as a favor to her, to help pay for a $16,000 pre-owned van with a loading ramp to make her accessibility easier,” said the close friend. “After all, Leo raises money for wildlife, so why not help out a woman he once considered like a mom?”Darlene recently starred in the short film “Mother,” and while director Franz Maria Quitt hoped Leo or Johnny would attend the premiere, neither did. “To Darlene, making ‘Gilbert Grape’ seems like yesterday,” said the insider. “To them, it was the start of many more years of movies, fortune and fame. It just goes to show that once certain people make more money and have more power, it’s like they forget.”
