A Rare Insight into to my Kevin Costner Experience
Kevin’s Design Gallery

All my life I have not been star-struck by anyone, even until this day in 2023.  I had no childhood fantasy or teen infatuation, or as an adult, no fan passion for any famous person.  I have had, and have my favorite actors and actresses both on TV and Hollywood Movies, but I wasn’t the type to follow their lives, read gossip, or become obsessed. 

I never screamed madly or fainted at sight or cried out-of-control over music stars either, like I had seen so many girls do when I was growing up – though I yelled a lot and roared with joy listening to live music.  I enjoyed lots of music, went to numerous concerts back in the day, the hippy days, but no one had ever touched my soul in a deep meaningful way ... until one day someone did.

What I am about to share are some details I kept secret for nearly 30 years.  It was something so personal and meaningful to me that it had to remain hidden.  I always knew someday I would have to release it because truth cannot remain secret forever.  But not all that I share has been a secret. 

In the summer of 1991, my oldest daughter and her husband had gone to see Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves at the theater.  She thought I would enjoy it because, as she said, it contained things related to my (then) recently published Christmas book.  When she told me about it, she was raving about an actor named Kevin Costner.  She was shocked that I didn’t know who that was, telling me he was the guy in Dances With Wolves.  When I told her I never heard of that either, she was beyond surprised.  Her and her husband were movie-goers, but I rarely had gone to the movies, and I seldom, if ever, read about movie stars or listen to gossip.  That world just wasn’t something I cared about, a world far from my own.  My life had been too busy and consumed with other things.  I seldom even watched TV.

I was surprised when she bought tickets for both me and her step father to see the movie for our birthday present - his was in June, mine in July.  I remember how much I enjoyed reading the Robin Hood story books when I was a kid, and watching my first Robin Hood movie in the 1970s with Sean Connery.  I felt connected to that 12th Century Era for some strange reason, that I would one day discover why.  The English had always fascinated me, but it was more than an adventure movie, it was something implanted deep within me.  I remember when I was thirteen I used to talk like an English girl and people would ask me if I was from England.  I played along and said yes.  It felt comfortable pretending, as silly as it was.

Sean Connery first became one of my favorite actors in James Bond movies.  During my early teens, I did enjoy going to the theater as much as possible, when life was much different then.  I did come to understand why I felt such a connection to Robin Hood stories when I completed my ancestry research, and came to see that my family history was well recorded during that timeframe, and much, much further back ... though I didn’t discover this until 2012 when I was 59 years old.

After I saw Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and Sean Connery playing King Richard in 1991, it brought back memories of days gone by.  In some respect the movie did relate to a few things regarding my research, and it was those things that lead me to sending Kevin my Christmas book.  I felt if he was aware of these things, he might – by miracle – read my book.  I wrote a short note inside addressing it to him and his family, saying I hoped it would bring a blessing.  Some might say that was pretty crazy of me, and I never thought I would hear from him … thinking I was taking a chance he would even see it. 

After that, my daughter invited us for dinner one evening, and she had rented the Dances With Wolves DVD  for me to see.  She loved that movie very much and it seemed important to her that I see it, and when I did, I found myself drawn in deeper to this man.  I had always had a strong bond with Native Americans, and this movie touched me spiritually in a very meaningful way. 

About three months after I sent the book I received a phone call from the people who had bought our house about a year earlier.  She said a large manila envelope came there addressed to me, but the strange thing was the only return address I used when I sent the book was our new P.O. Box, so it was a mystery to both of us why it was delivered to my old address, especially since we lived in different zip codes – yet, only a few miles apart.  When I asked her who it was from, she said it only had an address stamped from Los Angeles.  The next day I went to pick it up, and when I opened it, I was stunned.  There was a black and white photo of Kevin Costner from his movie Dances With Wolves - a very famous photo, I should say - that he signed with my name, thanking me for the book.

I was amazed, and so much so that a few months later I was looking for something in my antique buffet and came across an old, frail Indian wall hanging I had purchased decades earlier at an antique shop. For many years I had hung it on the wall, but decided I should preserve it, and packed it way.  When I came across it, suddenly I heard the voice tell me to send it to him.  I didn’t want to give it up, so I ignored the voice for as long as I could.  It continued to push me to send it to him, so one day I decided to let it go.  But before I sent it, I had my youngest daughter (over three decades ago) hold it up so I could take a picture of it, as I never wanted to forget what it looked like, and I wanted to capture the time in which it was sent.  I mailed it to the same address I had mailed my book, but I never did receive a response, and to this day I don’t know if he ever got it, and if he did, if he even kept it.  There have been many times I wished I had held on to it, because it meant so much to me ... so wherever it is, I hope it’s being taken well cared for.

In 1992, I was learning all about computers from my brother.  He gave me my first PC, and helped me setup a modem, then got me online with a local bulletin board system (BBS) where I could communicate with other people, and play games.  A year or so later, when something called the WorldWideWeb came along, the BBS disappeared and what you got was a black screen with a white curser blinking.  You had to type things that you were looking for, but there wasn’t much there at first.  Everything was in text format, black and white.  Kind of like the first TV’s.  Mostly you could use it as a research tool to look up different subjects.  It was interesting to investigate, and as it grew bigger, it grew more interesting.  Eventually the black screen was replaced with a menu, and color started to show up, but graphics were so slow to load that most turned that option off.  E-mail was also just arriving, so I was able to start exploring that as well.  But mostly, it was more fun playing games.

As things progressed, the WWW got more interesting.  While surfing around one day I came across a place you could go to chat with people.  There were many subjects from A to Z.   There were so many subjects that I started looking into many of them.  Chat rooms were fun to read, but I had never posted anything.  One day while I was looking for an interesting chat room, I went into one where people were talking about movies and movie stars.  Out of curiosity, I began to read what others were saying.  There was one person who called themselves Drudge, and he seemed to have the best scoop on Hollywood.  He really went far and many, many years later I saw the Drudge Report online.  Indeed, he really did go far, though in the chat room he was attack quite often.

It was 1995 when I learned Kevin was filming Waterworld in Hawaii, and I only knew that because some friends of my husband showed up one day after they had just returned from their vacation on the Big Island.  I had met the man before, but he was recently married and his new wife was really nice.  The woman gave me a handmade gift, a beautiful hair barrette she made from seashells.  She told me she recently collected them from the beach where they watched the filming of Waterworld, adding they were still filming when they left Island.  I was surprised when she told me that, and I showed her the signed photo he had sent me.  The beautiful gift this kind woman gave me meant more than she could have ever imagined, for it gave me a spiritual present that I still have to this day, but seldom ever wore it.  I suppose I didn’t want it to get ruined or lost in my travels.  I really thought it was too strange and mysterious that it couldn’t be just coincidence.

It wasn’t long after that when I saw a news story on TV about the property he owned in South Dakota and how he was developing it into a tourist resort.  I saw how the Native American’s were very upset about it.  When I saw that, something powerful overcame me with a strong urgency to warn him of the danger he could face.  I wrote a long letter telling him about the curse I lived with after digging up Indian beads at a sacred graveyard, and how that curse affected my life, and how I was set free.  I warned him that I believed no good would come from his plans … I urged him not to continue developing the land.  Somehow, I found an address to where he was supposed to be staying in Hawaii and sent it certified mail.

The letter was returned to me nearly two weeks later … stamped undeliverable.  I put the returned mail in another envelope and sent it to the address I had sent my book and the wall hanging.  I watched over time and never heard anything else about the project for years, though I wasn’t on the constant lookout.  I sent the letter, hoping he got it, and was hopeful he decided to not go any further.  Then much later, I heard he had stopped his project to add a golf course and a train.  I saw eventually that the property was sold.  In all my life I had never felt so strong about anyone famous, and it took a lot of courage for me to reach out in the ways I did to this man, fully aware that he must receive tons of mail.  I only had my faith to believe in.

While my husband was on an out-of-town job for a couple of weeks, and school was out for summer vacation, I was by then pretty involved in the chat rooms.  I liked to explore many of them, finding it to be an outlet from my country life.  I’ve always been interested in new things and WWW gave me a place I really enjoyed.  My husband was always logging, working on the property, sleeping or watching TV.  Logging and taking care of the farm was about all our life was about. 

When I explored a travel chat room, I got what they call ‘cabin fever.’  I suddenly had the urge to go somewhere ... where, I did not know.  I thought a nice short trip would satisfy my restlessness so my daughter and I packed a bag and loaded the car.  I got on the highway and just started driving south.  I kept driving and driving and driving, and we ended up in Reno, Nevada.  Not quite a short trip.  We stayed overnight, taking in the sights.  My daughter got to see what a casino looked like at Circus Circus.  After showing her around I took her to the arcade room where I knew she would be safe.  When I explained that there were cameras everywhere and staff monitoring, she seemed fine with it, so I went to do a little gambling.  I popped a ten dollar bill in a machine, and in less than ten minutes I was done.  Well, I had to give it shot, after all.  Though my luck at gambling had always been poor.  When I returned to get her, she seemed overwhelmed and was sitting alone waiting.  The next morning we headed home, stopping along the way to visit a long time friend near Sacramento, and ended up staying the night.

While back on the road, I stopped to fill my car up.  I was fascinated with the old historic town that I decided to drive around and check it out.  When I turned down Main Street, I saw a movie theater, the old fashion kind.  It had been a while since I’d seen one of those.  As we got closer I saw the title of the movie playing in huge letters glaring in the sunlight.  It said, “Waterworld.”  I pulled over to the curb to see the playing time.  The afternoon matinee was showing in less than 15 minutes.  I couldn’t believe it, it felt surreal.  I had just enough time to get our tickets and take our seats.  The ticket lady didn’t even ask my daughters age, I suppose she looked old enough, and she actually would have been in just a few more months.  There weren’t very many people in the theater, mostly adults, some teens.  People seemed to enjoy it.  We certainly enjoyed it, and I probably more so because of the connection I already felt.  After filling the car up we continued home.

When we got back home, I continued to surf the WWW chat rooms, occasionally looking into the movies and movie stars.  I enjoyed the computer far more than TV.  While my husband spent his home time falling asleep in front of the TV, I had turned our third bedroom into my own little office room, where I spent most of my time. 

One day, while in the movies chat room, I saw people talking about Kevin Costner.  Besides reading movie reviews, they were talking about his private life.  Many of the people had bad things to say, but then I saw someone who popped in who was coming to Kevin’s defense.  This person seemed very angry against those who were speaking - what he called mean-spirited - things about him.  This man started posting positive things about Kevin, and one day I got brave enough to respond to one of his posts, adding my positive words.  After a few more times supporting this person, he then responded with thanking me.  As I got braver, I too started posting comments to others who spoke against Kevin by defending him.  One day this man requested to have a private chat on email, posting his email address.  E-mail was very new at that time, and most people were just discovering it, but thanks to my brother he taught me these things early on.  I sent the man a message introducing myself, and that was the beginning of many months of conversations.  We became close friends during that time period.  He told me he knew Kevin - better than his own brother - and he surely did know many details about Kevin’s life ... so much so that at first, I almost thought he was Kevin.  Many of the things he told me were private, but I thought it odd at how upset he was about Kevin’s divorce, although he told me he knew his former wife too, and that occasionally he ate at a restaurant she owed ... saying she was a very nice lady.

Though many of our conversations were about Kevin, I managed to get him to reveal deeper details about himself, and in time I knew his full name, where he had once worked on a famous ship, where he attended a respectable University from where former presidents had graduated, and that he lived in Los Angeles.  He knew a lot more about me, though, and I enjoyed sharing my life stories.  When I knew enough details about him, I had to prove to myself that he was really who he said he was, so I went to the library and was able find his address on their computer.  His last name was not common, and so it wasn’t that difficult to locate it, giving me a sense of comfort.  I decided to buy him a gift to let him know how thankful I was for his friendship and mailed it off.  I didn’t tell him what I had done, though we were communicating every day.  Several days later he wrote to thank me for the gift.  I knew then, for absolute sure, he was who he said he was.  It was a little test, I admit, and he probably figured so himself.

Over the course of our friendship, he took me on a journey through Kevin’s career.  He had me rent nearly every movie Kevin had ever made, and I would watch them during the quiet afternoons.  He would tell me stories about many of them.  He had stories that only someone close to Kevin would know.  I had told my online friend, WC, about the many attempts I had made trying to contact Kevin, and about the signed autographed photo he sent me.  I shared a lot of my personal life with him, more than he shared about himself, and refreshingly, he was sincerely interested. 

As time wore on, he started to put distance between us.  At first, he said he was going on vacation for a couple of weeks and wouldn’t be able to write.  Then when he returned, he didn’t respond sometimes until the next day.  After his trip, he didn’t write me every day anymore.  I felt him slipping away with one excuse after another, then one day he told me he had go.  He said he had a lot going on and would be very busy, wishing me all the best, saying he enjoyed our time together.  It felt like I had lost my best friend, and it hurt deep.  I was sad for days, and I sent him a few messages hoping to hear back, but he didn’t respond.  Then I felt too foolish to continue carrying on.  I knew I had to let go and move on.

During our friendship, I was working at the real estate office.  I had been married to my logger husband for nearly 12 years by then, and things were not going well ... hadn’t been going well for some time.  He was gone a lot, either at work or hanging out with his brother, or going hunting, even keeping busy on our 66 acre property.  For years I listened to boring logging stories over and over again while attending logging crew family night pizza parties and occasional workshop gatherings while the guys all guzzled beer and talked logging, until after ten years I got tired of that meaningless life and pretty much stopped going with him the last two years of our marriage.  By the time I met my new friend, our marriage wasn’t doing too good.  I drifted further and further away from him as I drew closer and closer to my new friend.  It was my secret life that I had only shared with one girl friend whom I thought I could trust and she betrayed me ... as well as one man I was engaged to from Austin, Texas who also betrayed me.  I never told another soul, until now. 

WC wasn’t the cause of my divorce.  Our relationship was purely friends.  We never talked anything sexual, not even remotely.  But to share the depth we had, and to lose it like that, was devastating to me – yet, I had to hide my true feelings from everyone.  My girl friend of many years saw a personal opportunity for herself in my story and decided to contact Kevin with a movie proposal regarding her sister who died of AIDS after having a blood transfusion.  Her sister was in training for the Olympics.  Her sister and her mother exposed the blood banks and took their request to the Supreme Court to change the laws so that all blood was tested properly, and they won.  I suppose it was a meaningful reason to pitch such a heroic endeavor, but apparently she used my name, thinking I had some inside contact with Kevin.  I wasn’t happy when she told me what she had done.  I really had no idea what she wrote, but to write anything using my name was a betrayal to me.

During my time with WC, I had told him about my dying marriage and how depressed I was, and how mean my husband had become, drinking more and more.  I shared with him how badly I wanted to escape, and how I suspected he was having an affair, which I had confirmed when one night a woman called asking for him.  Her voice sounded angry when I handed him the phone.  After he said, “Hello,” there was dead silence as he sat there with a frozen expression for several minutes.  When he hung up and I asked who that was, he simply said it was a wrong number.  I later found out the truth.

As things went on, I encouraged him to take the job his brother offered in Washington.  His brother had moved up there sometime earlier and was doing construction work.  I had heard too many times how my husband wanted out of logging.  For years he complained on how beat up his body was working in the woods.  I told him I would continuing working while he went and got things set up.  I encouraged him to quit his job and move to Washington.  He did exactly that, and would come home on the weekends spending most of his time working on the property, drinking beer all weekend.  When the reality of the situation could no longer be ignored, we had the talk, a not so friendly confrontation.  Soon thereafter I started divorce procedures and put the house and property up for sale. 

In many ways I was sad to leave there.  It was so peaceful and beautiful, but life had to go on and there were too many unhappy memories there that overshadowed the happy ones.  By then it was just my youngest daughter and myself.  The other two girls were grown up and gone.  My husband certainly wasn’t going to let me keep the house so I had to put it on the market.  He was very upset about the divorce, and it didn’t end well.  But there really was no future for us any longer.  It was live or die and I chose to live.

The new year of 1996 had arrived.  It was Valentine’s Day and I was at work at the real estate office when I received an email message from WC.  I must admit, my heart was pounding as I read his message.  He simply wished me a Happy Valentine’s Day, sending a lovely picture of a rose, and said he hoped I was doing well.  It had been several months since he had departed, so I was so excited.  I wrote him back and told him that my husband and I had filed for divorce, and we were selling the property because I couldn’t afford to stay there, telling him I would be moving back to California when the property sold.  I told him I missed him and wished him well too.  He never wrote back. 

After putting the property on the market, it continued to sit there with not one showing for over a month.  When I finally got a call from another Realtor saying he had someone in his office interested in looking at my property, but that he was tied up and asked if I would show it, I excitedly left work and headed home.  Shortly thereafter a man drove up to the house, in a very nice truck, and I met him outside.  We talked for a few minutes as he commented how beautiful the property was.  He also mentioned how interesting the big mansion on the other hilltop straight across from us was, telling me he noticed the arched entrance on the driveway that read, “Heaven’s Gate.”  I told him that John Travolta was interested in buying that property at one time because it had a landing strip, making big news in our local newspaper.

I invited him in to see the house, but when he came in he seemed to just want to talk to me, so we talked awhile in the living room.  He wanted to know why we were selling, and where I was going, telling me he was from Los Angeles and did a lot of traveling for his job looking at different properties.  As we talked, he saw a framed picture I had sitting on the shelf and he went over to look at it, picking it up making a comment on how nice it was.  It was a picture of two mountain goats on a mountain top.  At that moment I felt a little strange.  It seemed like more was going on than a stranger looking at my property.  I was well aware that Kevin’s astral sign is a Capricorn - a mountain goat - but I had that framed picture for many decades, so it didn’t have any special meaning to me at that time.  It just seemed odd that he made mention to only that one item.

As he spoke about his travels stating his home base was Los Angeles, he mentioned friends of his who he said ran a non-profit organization, and as he spoke, I wondered why he was talking about them.  When he mentioned them by their last name, I was taken aback when he said, “Silva”.  Immediately, I recognized the name as Kevin’s former wife’s maiden name.  Right then, I got the strangest feeling.

It got even stranger when I offered to show him the house but he politely said he was more interested in the timbered property, so we went outside.  He hardly looked at the 66 acres, as we walked out to the end of the driveway and didn’t go any further.  He didn’t ask any questions about anything, like how was the well water ... and being in real estate, having shown many properties, I thought that was very odd.  I wasn’t sure when he left if he was all that interested in buying it.  He was the nicest man, but he seemed a lot more interested in me than the property.  With the strangeness I felt going on, I wondered if my friend was involved.

When I got back to the office, I got a call from the Realtor telling me the guy had made an offer.  It wasn’t at full price, but it was still a good offer.  My former husband was ok with the offer since it was all cash at close. We accepted the offer. The Realtor called the next day and told my Broker that the buyer said I was welcome to stay there for as long as I wanted, rent free.  I was shocked at such an unheard-of offer, as was my Broker and the other Realtor.  I kindly asked the Realtor to thank him for such a generous offer, but I really did want to get out of there and move back to California, where my family was.  As soon as the funds were available, I was packing a UHaul truck and on the move again.

I did move to California, and then shortly thereafter I moved to Austin, Texas, and from there I was back in Oregon – all within about a year – and back working at the real estate office again.  That’s when I started doing my graphic designs and website building.  It was about 1998 when someone from AOL contacted me to make Kevin Costner designs.  A fan site for Kevin saw my designs website where I displayed my graphic designs, and I had created a few of Kevin.  Apparently, from what they said, someone in their group encouraged them to reach out to me.  They referred to him as “Our mutual friend.”  My designs were shared among Kevin’s fans and that’s when I met one of his distant relatives, an older woman, an Aunt who was very proud of him.  She had a blog site and posted everything about Kevin, sharing photos taken of him with the her and the family.  She loved my designs so much she asked if I would make her some personal ones, with photos she sent me to work with.  She said she put them in her family photo album.  When I met her daughter, she was working for a publication of sorts and wanted to print them for public display.  I had to turn her down because of my concern with copyright.  Though, years later, I sent them all to her for safe keeping.  Also, during that time, I was also contacted via email from someone who claimed to be another relative of his asking if I would sell her my creations, telling me that she knew Kevin had seen them and was impressed.  Of course, I could not sell them for the same reason. 

The bond, if one could call it that, continued to grow deeper.  Some mysterious force kept Kevin in my sights.

By 2003 I had already remarried a year earlier, sold my house and moved to Maui, Hawaii.  My new husband was very supportive of my friendship with Kevin’s fans and family, and encouraged me to continue communicating with them on MySpace.  After a year living on Island, that life came to end when we left Maui and bought a home in the Ozark foothills of Arkansas.  Two years later we divorced.  He went back to Maui – from where he had come - and I stayed for another four years before returning to Oregon.  Myspace was fading out by then and a new social media platform came onboard called Facebook.  After being encouraged to join Facebook, in time I lost contact with them.  

As I have watched Kevin grow more famous over the decades, I have felt the need to send positive prayers to him.  I became deeply aware of the challenges and sacrifices the life he chose as his path would bear.  It sounds odd, but I have a heart for him, a spiritual mystery, and I may go to my grave never knowing why - though, I have always believed: All things have purpose.

Below are a few of my favorite designs of Kevin that I want to share dated from 1999 to 2008.