Kurt Russell's Rom-Com Overboard Is Based On A True Story Of Amnesia

"Overboard" features one of the weirdest cinematic romances of the '80s, but is the story about a man (Kurt Russell) convincing an amnesiac socialite (Goldie Hawn) that she's actually his put-upon wife too strange to be true, or just stranger than fiction? In a retrospective interview with screenwriter Leslie Dixon in 2017, Vanity Fair dropped a surprising, rare piece of movie trivia about the Garry Marshall film: it's apparently based on a true story.

According to the piece, Dixon was commissioned to write the film "based on a real incident in which a woman with amnesia washed ashore in Florida." Believe it or not, this detail seems to have rarely if ever been shared publicly until the film's 30 year anniversary; it doesn't show up in any of the original reviews or coverage of the film available online, nor in any references in available books mentioning the movie. We can safely assume that the folks at Vanity Fair did their homework, so the question from here is: what was the true story, and was it as off-putting as "Overboard" itself?

Woman's World recently reported that "Overboard" was based on the story of a memoryless woman found in Florida in winter 1980, who was later identified as Cheryl Tomiczek. Tomiczek wasn't taken in by a gruff Kurt Russell type and his gaggle of untidy kids, but her story is even more harrowing. According to a story from United Press International, Tomiczek was found "naked, filthy and dehydrated" in a Florida park, with other press at the time describing her as near death. A psychiatrist posited that a major stress may have caused her amnesia, and while there's no hint that she washed ashore as in the film, the doctor also said that she "may have been running in the woods for a long time."

Far from the uppity rich girl Goldie Hawn plays in overboard, the survivor who was known only as "Jane Doe" for seven mysterious months was eventually identified as the daughter of an Illinois couple. Adding another weird twist to the story, she was positively identified after taking a dose of sodium amytal, which a Tampa Tribune article describes as a "truth serum that induces sleep-talking." The drug helped the woman recall fragments of a childhood that matched that of Tomiczek, who had fallen out of contact with her family a full seven years earlier. Separately, her mother had also identified her based on an appearance she made on "Good Morning America."

There are plenty of disturbing details in this case: an article from Listverse claims that Tomiczek was found in a "shallow grave," and that her parents had worried about her after receiving a phone call in which she sounded upset and cut off all contact years earlier. A man in Florida contradicted the family's story, saying he had been living with Tomiczek for 13 years before she disappeared the summer before amidst "personal problems," per UPI.

The woman formerly known as "Jane Doe" ultimately went home with the Tomiczek family, and reporting on her life tapered off in the months that followed. ”I'm happy and relaxed and the best I've felt in a long time,” she told the New York Times in April 1981, and an update the following year confirmed that she still hadn't recovered her memories — but was content in her new (old) life. 

Obviously, this story only bears a passing resemblance to the plot of "Overboard," but some details match up. The real-life amnesiac woman was held in a mental hospital while attempts were made to confirm her identity, as was Hawn's character in the film. Both stories feature a man who claimed to have previously had a life with the woman, though only one version — the movie — crafts an entire enemies-to-lovers plot from an overt lie. With its creepy premise and mean-spirited execution, "Overboard" wasn't especially well received upon release, and it hasn't gained much in public estimation in the years since gaslighting became widely accepted as a form of abuse.

If the original version of the movie has one thing going for it, as many critics noted at the time, it's the chemistry between Hawn and Russell. The real headlines that may have given "Overboard" its plot might only bear a passing resemblance to the on-screen story, but one thing about the movie was real: the love between its two stars, who have been a couple since 1983.