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Alan Boyce in ‘Permanent Record’ (1988)
The actor Alan Boyce appeared in nine films between the years 1985 and 1997 then seemed to disappear without a trace. An extensive internet search unearths nothing about his life after ’97. In fact, apart from descriptions of his parts in the films he made, a handful of scanned movie stills, and one vidclip that shows Boyce playing second fiddle to Julia Roberts during her first screen test, there seems to be nothing directly related to him on the internet at all.
Despite the fact that Boyce was young, very good looking, received great reviews early in his career, and acted in some films that have passionate cult followings, he appears to have no fans who are sufficiently interested to name check him, hype him, or ask questions as to his current activities. In this, he would seem to be like the huge majority of attractive, talented young actors who get just enough notice and work to start careers but not enough of same to sustain them for long, who lose people’s interest as easily as they’d attracted it.
Boyce and I wound up being on different peripheries of the same social scene for a while, and we had some limited dealings with one another, so I have a sense of what might have gone wrong for him and a limited knowledge of what eventually became of him. No doubt because of this vague familiarity, his transformation from a very good and promising actor to a seemingly forgotten figure and non-issue is particularly strange and melancholy to me. This is my attempt to begin to fill in that blank for anyone else who might be quietly interested in Alan Boyce or who might be able to either make corrections in my quick sketch or flesh the story out.
Alan Boyce in ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’ (1985)
Seven Minutes in Heaven (1985; Linda Feferman)
Plot: ‘Natalie Becker is staying at home studying and working on an essay to meet the president while her father is away. Jeffrey Moran, a childhood friend (whom her father does not know) is having trouble with his stepfather, Jeremy, who is an immature bully, so she lets him stay with her. All sorts of trouble and misunderstandings ensue. Natalie falls in love with gorgeous James Casey (Alan Boyce), only to discover he’s a lying, cheating cad. Natalie’s best friend Polly tries to date a pro baseball player, Zoo Knudson, and is very intrusive on Natalie’s personal life, jumping to hasty conclusions.’
Note: A mediocre, somewhat charming trifle of a movie that’s little and best known today as one of Jennifer Connelly’s first films. Boyce’s small role calls for him to be cute, charming, and two-faced, and he succeeds well enough.
Trailer
Permanent Record (1988; dir. Marisa Silver)
Plot: ‘David Sinclair (Alan Boyce) seems to have everything going for him: he’s smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David’s suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and band-mate, Chris (Keanu Reeves), with a lot of questions.’
Note: Although not without flaws, the film is one of the better extant portrayals of the consequences of teenage suicide. Boyce is remarkable, and while the movie was not a success, he received the kind of extremely glowing reviews for his performance that can launch an impressive career. For whatever reason, Boyce didn’t benefit from the acclaim whatsoever. He never again appeared in a mainstream studio film, and apart from one appearance in an episode of the television series ‘China Beach,’ he didn’t act in movies or television again for five years. ‘Permanent Record’ is rarely talked about today, and is mostly known for featuring one of Keanu Reeves’s early performances.
Trailer
I met Alan Boyce at an art opening at a gallery on NYC’s Lower East Side not long after seeing ‘Permanent Record’. I tried to talk to him about how much I admired his performance in the film, but he seemed uncomfortable and disinterested. He was however quite interested in my boyfriend of the time, who later confessed to me that he and Boyce had snuck off into the gallery’s basement, shot heroin together and had quick sex.
Boyce was at the opening because he was friendly with a young couple in the NYC art and lit. scene who were close friends of mine. Depending on which member of the couple one asked, Boyce was either a good friend of theirs or a boy with whom they were involved in a menage a trois. Both described Boyce as a sweet guy who also happened to be a big mess: withdrawn, depressive, confused about his sexuality, and prone to being too heavily into drugs. They told me he’d felt unable to handle the pressures in and around the movie business and was taking a break from acting to get his life and head together.
I saw Boyce around NYC a few times after that, usually in the company of the couple, but after his indiscretion with my then ex-boyfriend, I didn’t go out of my way to talk with him. Then I stopped seeing him around, and one time when I asked my friends about him, they said he’d had some kind of breakdown and moved back to his hometown in New Hampshire.
An Ambush of Ghosts (1993; dir. Everett Lewis)
Plot: ‘Ten years earlier, George’s mother (Genvieve Bujold) ran over his younger brother in the family driveway and killed him. Since then, she’s been permanently out to lunch, and he has many responsibilities around the house. He’s a teenager now, with the usual insecurities that go along with that, but he also hasn’t reconciled the tragedy of his childhood. His difficulties are compounded when his schoolmate Christian (Alan Boyce) shows up on his doorstep asking for him to hide him; it turns out the boy has killed one of their classmates. George (Steven Dorff) is not willing to turn him in without taking some thought about it, and hides him for a while. Meanwhile, he acts as a go-between for Christian and his girlfriend Denise (Anne Heche), whom he develops feelings for. Eventually, the question of what is really real becomes an important one to find answers to.’
Note: Boyce’s best work post-‘Permanent Record’ was in two films by the director Everett Lewis. The excellent ‘An Ambush of Ghosts’, their first collaboration, was poorly received in its early screenings for critics and distributors and remained unseen for many years until it received a very limited release in the late 1990s. It’s an obscure gem, and Boyce’s quiet, intense performance is superb.
fanmade homage to the film
Totally Fucked Up (1993; dir. Gregg Araki)
Plot: ‘The primary character is Andy (a superb James Duval) whose view of life is bleak to say the least: Andy doesn’t believe in love, in commitment, believes he is bisexual even though he has never stepped out of his same-sex playing out, grows to depend on his friends, falls in love with a sweet talking fellow Ian (Alan Boyce) only to discover Ian is not at all monogamous, and finally feels the pain of heartbreak and makes a decision about life that ends the film.’
Note: Boyce’s appearance in this earlyish Araki film christens the second phase of his career in which, with one exception, he is an ensemble performer in films associated with the so-called Queer Cinema genre. Excepting 1994 guest roles in one episode each of the series ‘The X Files’ and ‘Red Shoe Diaries’, Boyce now stuck (or was stuck) to playing moody, often peripheral gay or bisexual characters. His performance here is pointedly restricted by the casual, introverted acting style Araki favored in his first several films, but he is nonetheless quite good: coiled, preoccupied, and charismatic.
I went to an advance screening of ‘Totally Fucked Up’ and was very surprised and pleased that during the course of the movie, Alan Boyce’s character talks up my books to the main character Andy. The cast was at the screening, and, at the reception afterwards, I approached Boyce and told him how cool it was to hear him reference my work in the film. He was polite but acted very uncomfortable. He said he didn’t remember meeting me or my ex-boyfriend, and a mention of our mutual New York friends made him grow silent and nervous, so I left him alone.
Later at the reception when I mentioned to an acquaintance who’d worked on the film that Boyce had seemed rather unfriendly, he said that while making the film, he’d found Boyce nice enough but very mysterious and kind of withdrawn. He also said that while Boyce had admitted to having some gay experiences in his life, he was essentially straight and that, along with a few other heterosexual members of the cast, he was determined that he not be tagged as gay just because he was in a queer film. My acquaintance thought my being so gay-associated might have made Boyce uncomfortable.
the entirety
No Easy Way (1996; dir. Jeffrey Fine)
Plot: ‘Matthew, a gay concert pianist played by Alan Boyce, has kept his HIV positive status secret and refuses help from family and doctors. On the night he loses his job playing mood music in a fancy hotel, Matthew meets an African American streetwise panhandler Diana (Khandi Alexander) and the pair become wary friends.’
Note: ‘As Boyce’s luck would have it, this hardly seen, little noticed, low budget tear jerker gave him his only post-‘Permanent Record’ opportunity to both star in a movie and show off his considerable gifts as a traditional actor. The movie itself gets a few points for being somewhat restrained in its emotional button pushing and instant messaging of the importance of tolerance, but, other than the performances, it’s a rote affair mostly suitable for the collections of completist Khandi Alexander fans.
Kiss and Tell (1996; dir. Jordan Alan)
Plot: ‘Justine Bateman plays Molly, a performance artist who turns up dead with a carrot up her butt by LAX. Three detectives interview her friends lead by Heather Graham to find out who killed her and why.’
Note: This is a truly dreadful movie in every way possible. Boyce is in it for maybe five minutes tops and does next to nothing.
Trailer
Around this time I was buying tickets to see a matinee of some forgotten movie when I saw Boyce in the lobby looking extremely high on something and barely able to walk. Everyyone in the lobby was staring at him. He was with a girl who steered him with great difficulty into the theater. It was an unnerving and depressing sight. The next time I saw a friend who’d worked on a film with Boyce, I told him about what I’d witnessed, and he responded with much exasperation that he and everyone he knew were really fed up with Boyce’s drug problems. He said the problem was bad and obvious enough that Boyce was losing a lot of acting jobs, but that friends’ and colleague’s concern hadn’t seemed to have any impact on the problem.
Red Ribbon Blues (1996; dir. Charles Winkler)
Plot: ‘A wacky group of HIV+ queers decide to take on the drug companies who are limiting their access to the AIDS drug, D-64. RuPaul and Lypsinka (both out of drag) play a long-term gay couple who join with Paul Mercurio and Debi Mazar as an unlikely gang of drugstore robbers.’
Note: I haven’t seen this film. The one person I know who’s seen it didn’t remember even seeing Boyce in the movie, so his role must be very small.
Trailer
Skin and Bone (1997; dir. Everett Lewis)
Plot: ‘Inevitably set in Los Angeles, amid that city’s arid strip malls, newsstands, and endless dusty streets, Skin and Bone prowls through the insular world of a trio of rent boys controlled by a mysterious madam named Ghislaine (Nicole Dillenberg). Harry (b. Wyatt) is an ambitious hunk who splits his time between tricking and trying to make it as a movie star. Handsome Dean (Alan Boyce) is younger and more naïve and falls into whoredom through a kind of pathetic disengagement with life that saturates this world and its denizens. A clueless pal of Harry’s, Billy (Garrett Scullin), gets sucked into the life with disastrous results.’
Note: Skin and Bone was one of the most controversial films of the so-called Queer Cinema genre and is often lumped together with the crappy film based on my novel Frisk, but it is a far superior work. As has been the case with many of director Everett Lewis’s films, it had a limited release and has been more discussed than seen. Boyce plays a particularly effective variation on his usual emotionally remote, sympathetic lost boy character.
Nowhere (1997; dir. Gregg Araki)
Plot: ‘Nowhere chronicles a day (and night) in the lives of a group of 20 or more alienated Los Angeles teenagers in their personal lives of despair, alienation, failing relationships and more. Centering on one 18-year-old named Dark, an alienated UCLA film student; his bisexual African-American girlfriend Mel; her purple-haired, acid-tongued lesbian girlfriend Lucifer; Dark’s homosexual classmate Montgomery; and Montgomery’s poetess friend Alyssa.’
Note: Boyce’s last role is a tiny, barely noticeable turn as one of many bored, arch, pessimistic young hipsters who orbit around James Duval’s central character in this third part of Araki’s ‘Beverly Hills 90210 on acid’ trilogy of films.
Trailer
Shortly after the release of Nowhere, I was talking with a young film director acquaintance. He was planning a new movie, and I suggested Boyce as someone he might consider for the main role. He said he had thought of Boyce for the part and had made some inquiries in that regard, only to be told that something really terrible had happened to the actor, and he was not available.
The next time I talked to a friend of mine who knew and had worked with Boyce, I asked what had happened. He said Boyce had had a very bad drug overdose that almost killed him, and, possibly as the result of suffering a related stroke, he had serious neurological damage and was back on the East Coast living with and being taken care of by his parents. About a year later, I asked this same friend how Boyce was doing, and he said no one he knew had heard anything from or about him.
Alan Boyce and Julia Roberts auditioning in 1986
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Thank you for talking to Nick. ** alex rose, Hi, buddy. Oh, cool, about Gaahl. He paints? I’ll go find some online evidence. Renaissance-y man. Dude, no comfort, I know, but it’s the same in the film world, from my experience. Film programmers can be the rudest, most neglectful people possible. Like answering a simple email with a simple answer is ebola or something. Leaving people hanging when it would take a minute tops to give them a rest, or even taking a mere few seconds to type ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It seems really chickenshit. So I feel you and dig you. I’m good apart from trying to pull teeth from two international programmers who said yes to a ‘PGL’ screening with Zac and me in attendance and now can’t seem to be bothered to tell us the screening dates less than a month before they’re supposed to be happening. So there’s that grr, but A-okay otherwise. Fuck em all, for sure, and love you too. ** Keaton, No good pastry in Florida? Weird, isn’t it? Even in LA, you just can’t find great pastries if you’re hep to what pastries can be. I think the galleries have just restarted their shows after the summer break, and in fact I was just about to hit the listings and see what the booty’s like out there. So I’ll let you know, and, for now, probably. Hope your weekend flew by. ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark. We’ve been in touch, and now I’m counting down the days! Whoo-hoo! ** Misanthrope, Yeah, but I do like poetry when it’s chilly and precise and abstract too. And getting that right, which isn’t easy, is gutsy, even if the pages don’t show much that’s going on below the poet’s neck. I wish artists in every medium were as daring and carefree as musicians and music artists are. That’s why music has so often been such an influence and template for me. Contemporary music has a gigantic reach, from the most radical stuff to the most polished, trad stuff, and I don’t think any other medium allows artists so much room to move and also to succeed with audiences in some way. ** Dominik, Hi, Dominik! Oh, could that bookstore I frequented and love still exist? Let me check. Hold on. Holy shit, it does! That amazes me. It’s The Book Exchange. Is that where you went? Wow, amazing it’s still there 30 years later. That’s crazy. My trusted reader is currently hitting a tight deadline, so I have to wait until they finish what they’re working on before they can read my novel, which hopefully will be this week. The wait is driving me completely crazy. Well, not really, but … The TV project is back, yes. Gisele’s working on the edit of the test footage with Zac’s and my input, and I’m about to start looking for 10 – 15 minutes’ worth of stuff that we can cut from each of the episode scripts because we have to. So, yes. For better or worse. Oh, that show you went to seems like shows I used to go to in the late punk era in LA. Punk scene guys out west could get very violent. I got swept into a nasty pit once and got pretty beaten up by some guys and had my shirt ripped off and then was grabbed by bouncers and dragged to the exit and thrown outside, all in the course of about a minute and a half. Memorable. My weekend was pretty okay, working. How’s your week ahead looking? Any fun signs? Lots of love back! ** Nick Toti, Hi, man. My honor my privilege, thank you so much again! ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I know Seth Price’s Vimeo page. I have one eye on him, although I did miss that new, big project. Gaahl is a solo artist now? ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks a lot for watching the film and talking to Nick, man. ** Bill, Hey. Thanks for attending to Nick’s film. TV project is proceeding without that being a nice, interesting thing but out of necessity, but I suppose meeting necessity’s demands is pleasurable in a way. Cool you’re reading Richard Cheim’s book. I’m just crazy about his prose. ** Okay. This is quite an old post, as you can probably tell. Strangely, things around Boyce’s disappearance seem to be as mysterious now as were many years ago, as far as I can tell. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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The Alan Boyce story is Really Sad. Fascinating that he worked with great queer filmmakers like Everett Lewis and Greg Araki. Horrible about his drug addiction and strokes.
Meanwhile on a happier note It’s Arthur Freed’s Birthday
I never had a drug addiction and never had a stroke, I was in a car accident, coma in 1996
Hey brother, how are you doing? The last time I saw you was when dad was dying. Get in touch!
Is B for Bert? If it is you. I wasn’t on any drugs when I saw you in EW NH. I didn’t take drugs. I had a traumatic brain injury, (TBI) from a car accident. I didn’t expect to see you and I was completely surprised and speechless, because of my TBI. Hope you’re doing well.
Bert, if anyone broke Dad’s heart it was you. You are the one who told him a lie about me. That I was on drugs. I had a TBI and slept only three hours the night before and so I wasn’t operating on all twelve cylinders. You concocted a lie essentially by codifying that lie to my father and online. I wasn’t on drugs. I had a been in a coma only months before I saw you. Your ignorance about my situation in regarding the various brain deficits I had. The fact that it was necessary for me to get a minimum of eight hours sleep each night was essential, without 8 hours a night sleep I would experience various setbacks with deficits related to my TBI. I have no ill will towards you and I never realized that you did have ill will towards me. Did my father leave me in the will? Until you told that totally manufactured story that you told to your advantage at my expanse. Whatever. You’re not the person I thought you were. Don’t pretend you like me.
Just on a curious side note, was it like working with Keanu reeves back in the day, & now seeing through with the lenses of his A-listing ability currently ( not to say u weren’t great in tht film also ) & ur performance is one of the main reasons I’ll recommend to some
I was good friends with Bruce Toms before he passed and he told me some fun stories of the two of you. I hope you’re doing well.
I never had a drug addiction or a stroke. I was in a car accident and coma.
Hi Alan! It’s Tanya, Gary’s ex girlfriend and your old room mate.
So sorry to hear you were in a car wreck . I’m on messenger under
Tanya Evans . I would love to hear from you. Take care, Tanya
Hey!
So Slipknot was actually pretty damn impressive. They seem to be very keen on what makes a good rock concert and they really fucking delivered. I was pretty taken back by the whole spectacle of the thing. The crowd was what you could expect from a mainstream metal festival (lots of cargo shorts and tube socks). Booked it the second it was over.
I sent you an email with the manu. I’m going to start sending it around pretty soon, but not exactly sure where yet. It would probably help if I sat down and came up with a title for the fucking thing, haha. Speaking of books I just got Brian Allen Car’s newest ‘Road Warrior Hawk’. Pretty damn funny until it caught me by surprise. Very ninja like of him.
Are you still filming for the next movie? I remember you said something about getting shots of construction sites, or was that for PGL?
I finally saw ‘John Wick 2’, and I liked it a lot more than I expected. Going to see the third one very soon.
Not a whole lot new for me. Thinking about growing a beard, but it’s still so damn hot so maybe/maybe not. Other than that I don’t have a whole lot of free time because of school. And I’m about to get a job making sandwiches at a coffee shop. I’m also considering taking a sobriety break. I seem to say that a lot, but it’s starting to become more hassle than escape, so I think a break’s necessary.
How’s everything for you? What’s your favorite snack? Right now I’ve been eating a lot of berries: blues, blacks, rasp, etc. But I ate some cheese before going to bed and am seriously paying for it this morning.
Have a good day.
This is such a sad story. The Skin and Bone thriller looks great; will try to find a copy. Most of the 90s New Queer Cinema films are not so easy to come by these days, now that SF lost all its obsessive art/cult video rental places.
Been quiet around here, but this coming weekend is jam-packed with the SF Electronic Music Festival, among others. Yow.
Bill
alex rose TRAUMA season 4 ep 18
dennis, haha,
jimi finally awoke and emailed back saying he’d post my work to me at the cost of 3 k + but he’d pay for it, so i took a deep breath and walked around this upturned skull of a city shouting at clouds etc, i replied later to jimi saying keep my work, whats the point in burning that bridge ? and id possibly getting black balled in the ny art scene, as of now he has all my work and im showing in his space, east village or tribeca in april
it only takes once person to like my work and you know ? something good could happen, hahaha, oh stop
im sorry if i came across pissed as in angry, but i was, with at alot of people, anyway tonight all is good
dennis, i was just thinking that you’ve been very supportive to me over the years and im really gratefull for that, it’s mostly your fault, haha
love to you, as always, alex,x
dennis
have you seen this trailer, the painted bird ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH5YKki0KBs
ooh, il be outside the cinema ringing a bell, atop a cockeyed goat
we need more necrorealism in cinema
they seem to have raided yevgeny yufit’s work here but still….
love, a
I remember one of my first stays in Paris, a line of people lined up on a Saturday night, not to get into a club, but rather to see the baker on Montmartre. I’m pretty sure one of the best pastries ever was a mushroom tart thingie. I don’t eat sweets much. I learned to make meringue one time as a kid so I’m kind of obsesssed with it. I havent eaten bread for years, but now I’m totally into it. Florida’s a tough one, I tell ya. Rough around the edges. Oh, the shows in Paris can be so exiting. Do let me know. I will be that way soon.
Not sure I know Alan Boyce, surely I do. Funny how Hollywood works. The money and gone. I have to wonder sometimes, where is Judd Nelson these days?
Shark infested love
A very sad and mysterious story, this. On a similarly sombre note, tonight I saw a new BBC doc called Darren McGarvey’s Scotland where the rapper and social commentator looked at why in 2018 Dundee became the drug death capital of Europe. It’s a side to the city that I don’t ever see, being insulated here inside a flat in the West End. There’s a major public health crisis out there beyond all the glittery art and design happenings.
Hi Dennis,
I’m finally back among the living – my new show in LA opened on Saturday and now I feel much lighter. I’ll email you photos this week. It was good. Lots of people showed up, I sold a few things and nobody yelled at me or called me a fraud. So, success. I have no idea what’s been going on with you of late so I hope things are good and I’m looking forward to getting back to my daily lurking and occasional commenting. Love, B.
Dennis, Hiii…I agree with everything you just typed there. So the question is: why do you think that is?
Hey Dennis!
Thanks for the encouragement about the LDR essay. I’m waiting to get my edits back, and I guess it’ll be up on LARB in a week or two. I think I ended up striking a healthy balance between personal reportage and cultural criticism, although it’s hard to say if people will like it. Ultimately thesis is that neoliberal feminism is the wrong framework to use in discussions Lana Del Rey’s music, but it appears that the media is gonna keep discussing her work in the framework of neoliberal feminism nonetheless. It seems that we want our artists to accommodate to the media’s terms instead of meeting our artists on their own terms. Lana actually insulted an NPR critic on Twitter recently, saying that “I don’t even relate to one observation you made about the music. I may never have made bold political or cultural statements before, because my gift is the warmth I live my life with and the self reflection I share generously.” It’s an idea that I’m kind of really fascinated by lately, the idea that being a warm, generous person is seen as a sign of weakness or a sign of shirking your civic responsibility. You can act like a total asshole & treat people like shit if they’re not sufficiently liberal, but if you telegraph the correct political or social messages to the outside world, then you’ll be seen as a hero or a feminist or whatever. It’s hard to explain exactly; Mary Gaitskill actually has a couple essays in which she remarks upon the veneration of sociopathy as a sign of virtue in contemporary American life. Do you ever feel that way about America? I’ve always felt in your fiction there’s a fluidity btwn the violence and the tenderness, and the artistic impact can’t be neatly telegraphed onto a political binary of conservative/liberal, etc. I feel that most of my favorite artists aren’t political in that sense, their aims are more spiritual/metaphysical…Do you even like Lana Del Rey? Also, do you ever feel like critics/readers consume your work in bad faith as they sometimes do with Lana’s?
Believe it or not, I actually received a personalized rejection from the New Yorker last week–they said they “admired my fiction,” which was really cool to hear, especially since I submitted thru the slush pile. Lonely Christopher also referred me to a writer’s residency with Fence Books, although I probably won’t get it because I’m not a Fence contributor. But I was grateful he did that, and I’m feeling really confident about my writing right now. What do you think I should do? LA is becoming more and more appealing these days–I kind of just want to go to the beach all the time and then get tacos and go on long walks at night. Which neighborhoods in LA do you think I would like? I hear Silver Lake is past its hipster stage & is now onto its yuppie stage. That’s kind of like Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin I guess. But I kind of want to come back to Europe & just play & read books all day while I work on my novel & try to get a new story published. Is it bad that I only work like 10-15 hours a week? I guess I work on my fiction & essays over 20 hours a week, too, but I literally just don’t want to have a real job. Is that entitled of me? I just get really anxious & irritable in office spaces.
As far as what I’m reading right now, I recently discovered Yukio Mishima. Pretty late for me to discover him, but I’m really really loving his work. I’m reading Confessions of a Mask right now. It reminds me a lot of Kevin Killian’s writing actually, although from Kevin’s prose I’ve always gotten a warm, bright texture. Mishima is very turquoise/pearl to me. My writing heroes have gone from Justin Torres (age 20) to you (21-22) to Mary Gaitskill (23) to now Mishima and Alexander Chee (24). I also really want to read the new Ariana Reines collection soon. I might take the train down to Manhattan & hear her read at the Poetry Project on Wednesday.
Looking forward to hearing back from you. If you have any suggestions or advice on what you think I should do in the next few months–try to crank out a first draft of my novel or apply to grad school or whatever you think would be the best move–I’d be grateful for the guidance.
Actually, Gaahl has a new band called Gaahls Wyrd. Their debut album came out in May.
I met with the actor today, and it went well. I haven’t been in touch with him much lately, but I thought it was interesting that he didn’t realize the voice-over text was autobiographical till I told him. Even though all the experiences and opinions in it are mine, with minimal changes made, I tried to write it so that it sounded like a character’s voice. He won’t have time to record this till October at the earliest, but that’s fine.
Have you heard anything about Boyce since this post first went up? I got curious and entered his name into Instagram – nothing about his current whereabouts, but PERMANENT RECORD, TOTALLY FUCKED UP & NOWHERE still have avid fans.
The sheer lack of curiosity among festival programmers I’ve sometimes see amazes me, but I’ve seen the other side of film programming too, where they have 40 Vimeo links to watch in a brief amount of time to fit 5 slots. Getting ghosted like that stinks, but these days people simply don’t respond to E-mail if their answer is no.
Thanks for putting this together. I have wondered what ever happen to Alan Boyce. I really like his work and thought he was on his way to huge success. Sorry he’s had it so rough.
Yeah okay well that sucks. I just watched Totally fucked Up on kanopy and wondered.
For years I had been wondering whatever happend to him. Permanent Record has a special place in my heart and I thought his performance was stellar. Thanks for this write up, very sad to hear about his fate.
Thanks for your blog on Alan Boyce
I’ve known him on and off for years, and now and then give him a call to see how he is doing .
Just texted him a Happy Thanksgiving
I hung out with him in New York some time ago
Also he was not in a coma due to an overdose . He was in a bad car accident. Now that could have been because he was high on drugs or something I don’t know.
All we were told he was in a car accident.
My friend Rudy and I went an visited him at Cedars Sinai hospital after we found out what happened
I have not seen him forever but we have talked and lol a lot over the phone about old times. He asked me if I still see Khandi Alexander who I also know
I told him I ran into her at a couple of years ago
He seems to be doing great and next time I’m in New York I will definitely call him to get together
Thanks for the blog ! It’s good to see someone besides me and a couple of others think about him
I also visited him in the hospital, he was having trouble speaking but I hope that has improved. Unfortunately I haven’t had contact with him since. He disappeared. Glad to hear he’s still alive though. I did some digging on him and I think I found a posting by him on a medical forum. I’m not going to say what it was about here…. pretty personal. Lastly, you can see him very briefly a couple times in a documentary called “Uncle Howard”. (That’s a deep-cuts hint for DC fans).
Dennis, I saw PGL at ArtCenter last year. You were getting mobbed by fanboys. So I didn’t say hi. But really really appreciated the film. A perfect representation of your aesthetic.
Best,
G
I am fascinated by him, i am glad that he’s alive but i just can’t stop wondering about him and his life, he seems like such a sweet person 🙁 i wanna know how he’s acting career was in ship to wreck…
I knew Alan in High School. Both he and I worked at Shaw’s Supermarket in Derry NH bagging groceries. I never knew him to be gay or even do drugs of any kind. I also don’t remember him having close friends. He was a nice, seemed like straight laced guy, intelligent. He is also related to my cousin, Allyson Boyce on her side of the family. He drove an AMC Hornet in High School. One day he was at work, the next day he vanished. Around 1987 I learned from my cousin that Alan had become an actor and she told me about the movie he was in 7 Minutes in Heaven. I rented it with my Fiance at the time and was shocked that someone I had known had become kind of famous. Then late at home one night I saw Permanent Record on TV and recognized him. Never really saw him on anything else after that and was not an X-Files fan so I did not even realize he was on that. Every once in a while I would put his name in a google search to see what would come up as I always wondered what happened to him. If it is true about the drugs and such, if you knew him in high school as I did you would have thought that would be the guy least likely to take that route. Alan Boyce was a nice polite guy and that’s how I remember him.
I also knew Alan in High School. Our mothers were friends for many years. In fact our families lived together for a few months in California…best of times. Alan was a super good friend and easy to be around. We all have challenges in life. I hope he is happy today. BTW…we were in California 1977/ 78. His family (mother and 2 brothers) returned to NH. I wish I could talk to him.
If you read this Alan…know you are in my thoughts.
Lisa Russell Kittelson
Lisa, holly cow, what a surprise. I wish I had seen this when you posted it. You’re a long lost great friend of mine. I hope you’re doing well. OMG shocker. I was in a car accident. No drugs involved. I never had a drug problem before my coma inducing car accident. I didn’t even know my name. I was in a wheelchair. I almost died. Drugs were never in my life pre-TBI. (traumatic brain injury) You have my email so please email me. Send you my warmest wishes.
God bless.
-Alan
Lisa I have the warmest feelings for you. Those months in California were so much fun I wrote a book about living in CA. Huntington Beach. What a madhouse we were under.
(The manuscript got destroyed in my car accident because it was in the back seat)
Lisa, Remember the neighborhood got a petition to get all of us thrown out of the place. Remember that? God willing, if God is still on my side I will reconnect with you someday. Until that day I hope you are in good health and good hands. My God I can’t imagine what you look like. I just remember your beautiful face when we were in high-school.
Weird. I just came upon your blog, Dennis, after doing a Google search on Alan Boyce. I had brief, spooky interactions with a few actors, all of whom eventually succumbed to drugs/alcohol – including Rodney Harvey, River Phoenix and Alan Boyce. Boyce I met in NYC around 1991. I was flirting around with this guy Mateus who was kind of a big model at the time and also dated Rupert Everett. One night, he told me to meet him in the west village for dinner and when I showed up, Alan was with him. I’m a film junkie and new immediately who he was, which he seemed to like. The three of us proceeded to get hammered at a few dodgy gay bars. While he was chatty in the beginning, Alan became more withdrawn as the night went on and at one point he got very defensive and proclaimed he wasnt gay (this was said in the midst of a packed hustler bar). I backed off a bit then went home because I was a little too fucked up. That was it. Never saw him again. This model guy and I had a brief affair and then he disappeared too, just like Alan. I often think (probably a little too much) about these incredibly charismatic and beautiful guys from the 90s who just flamed out so spectacularly. This fills in one of those blanks. Thank you.
Justin,
I’ve no memory of the experience you are talking about which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen exactly as you said it did. I didn’t have a drug problem. I had emotional issues but was limping along through my Hollywood days in a mediocre way. I only really came to life when the cameras were on. They weren’t on often enough. I was on my way to a party and was in a car accident. I ended up in a coma. A few days later I came out of my coma. Didn’t know my name. I was partially paralyzed. Didn’t know who my mother was. Didn’t know how to wipe my own ass. Didn’t know how to eat, was fed by a tube in my stomach, didn’t know how to talk. Drugs were never a problem for me before my TBI. (traumatic brain injury) Thank you for the kind words. Sorry I was was such a mental mess regarding the night you referred to. I’ve been a mental case my whole life. Again thanks for caring
This story made my heart ache. I can’t believe so many of Hollywood can let people fall of the radar like this and not care. I feel so heartbroken for Alan.
I was in a car accident, coma, I didn’t even know my own name, wheelchair, rehab, I’m doing ok, but I’m not that young beautiful man that I once was. God has blessed me many times.
I also knew Alan in High School. Our mothers were friends for many years. In fact our families lived together for a few months in California…best of times. Alan was a super good friend and easy to be around. We all have challenges in life. I hope he is happy today. BTW…we were in California 1977/ 78. His family (mother and 2 brothers) returned to NH. I wish I could talk to him.
If you read this Alan…know you are in my thoughts.
Lisa Russell Kittelson
Hi Lisa, it was such a surprise to see your message, thanks you for your kind words. I was I a car accident, coma, wheelchair, didn’t even know my own name. Lisa, you are in my thoughts and I just saw this message.
A serious accident caused the coma not drugs.
Thank you Becky whomever you are
I knew Alan through Junior High School, High School and throughout our 20’s. We were the best of friends. As stated above, we worked at Shaws Supermarket together. We also hung out together all the time. Alan was the sweetest boy you could ever know. He had a serious side but he absolutely loved to be silly and laugh. When we graduated from high school he went to NY and I followed shortly after. We went to Studio 54 together! We always kept in touch. Eventually I moved back to NH and we kept in touch for years, then I lost contact with him. I desperately want to find him but I’ve been unsuccessful. 😢 We were best friends for so many years. I hope to someday hear from him. Alan, if you read this, please reach out to me on FB. I love and miss you so much. Lynda
Lynda, I just now read your post I will attempt to reach out to you on Facebook but I’m not on Facebook, my email is [email protected] I didn’t OD on any drugs. Talk soon I hope.
I have loving feelings for you Lynda, I always have. Alan
Hi Alan, I am just seeing this! I just emailed you. I love and miss you!
Lyn∂a, when you called my brother, you said your name was Lynn, and I didn’t know Lynn was you. Please contact me. Thanks. I was in a coma from a car accident. I have such fond memories of you what little memories I have.
Alan
A number of years ago, Alan and I became fast friends. We abruptly lost touch however and I never knew why…but now I’m suspecting it was because of his accident. I’d like to ask for the help of anyone here who is still in touch with Alan…can you help me to reach my friend?
James, this is two years later I’m reading your note. James? Your name doesn’t ring a bell. I was in a coma from a car crash. [email protected] So that’s my email and do get in touch.
my email is [email protected]
I emailed you Alan. Hopefully you received it. You can also text or call me. (603) 608-2066. 😘😘😘
There’s an old article you can read up online about Alan Boyce being interviewed I think it had to do with the premiere of permanent record and he’s mentioned that him and Keanu we’re very close friends so presumably they parted ways also but those answers are unclear for now.
I last saw Alan in 2005 when our Dad was dying from cancer. He showed up at the house in Washington, NH looking emaciated and pretty out of it – shaking, mumbling, and aloof. He was driven there by a friend who walked around the property and tried to assess the value, which we all thought was in poor taste.
I’ve never had a particularly good relationship with my brother, as he was pretty mean and spiteful to me after his dad married my mom, but I was left feeling very sorry for him,
especially since dad was so proud of his acting career and had to see what he turned into before he passed away. I really think it broke dads heart.
In retrospect, I guess we all knew something was happening with him. I remember him calling the house one day in the 1990s elated over getting a great part in a movie, only for us to be told the next day that he ‘walked through a plate glass window’ that night and was in the hospital. Dad visited him in the hospital in LA immediately after that and was pretty much rebuffed by Alan and his then girlfriend Rikki Lake. From then on, contact with the family was essentually lost. We heard rumors, but nothing concrete until he showed up that horrible day in 2005. I really hope he cleaned himself up and found a way to suppress his demons.
Bert, I had a severe brain injury and I wasn’t doing drugs. My friend walk around the house admiring it not pricing it. I doubt sincerely I broke his heart. He didn’t have a heart to break concerning his biological sons.
This is a really douche message that you should delete.
Meaning the message by B Boyce.
@B Boyce
It’s not hard to read between your lines. Projecting, much?
Your father most likely died of a broken heart because he walked away from his first family of three very young boys who needed him to be a father instead of a deadbeat (no pun intended). He only made an effort to reach out to one of them (decades later) when he thought they had some money. I’m sure it took enormous courage for Alan to say goodbye to a father whose life was defined by cowardice, selfishness, and being a self-serving POS. It’s plain to see that you will be carrying on his legacy. Toodles.
whomever you are, thank you, -Alan
whomever you are, thank you. Well said.
Alan I am so glad to see you are doing well!
This is David. We hung out for a while in NYC while you were recuperating after your car accident (yes folks I can vouch for him. He was in a bad car accident. NO DRUGS were involved!) Alan, I was in Film School when we hung out.. I lived on Gay Street in the Village. I had that ridiculously tiny apartment barely bigger than a walk-in closet. I painted my walls an ugly peach… you just looked at the walls, then at me, and smiled. I agreed it was horrible. It was around 1997. We talked a lot about film making. Once, we hung out at your Mom’s and your place in Manhattan, I believe, and we were goofing around with my movie camera trying to film something, I remember throwing around a paper airplane or something dumb like that.
I would love to talk to you sometime, if you’d like. ([email protected])
David
xoxo
P.S. Guys, It’s not cool to talk crap about ANYONE on the internet. You never know what people have gone through in their life. Hearsay is merely gossip, and gossip hurts.
Alan after I posted that first comment, I saw your email address in a comment you left, so I just sent you an email with more specific details.
-David
Dear Alan:
I never watched X-Files during the 90s, and just caught your performance on Amazon, since I bought the 1st Season. I’m just somebody who saw you act and was enthralled by your performance. I am so very glad you are alive after your horrendous accident! Today I tried so hard to find more info about you and found this blog! Some people talk crap just to make themselves feel better about their own lives. Ignore them!
I am so happy that you are not bitter and your friends have found you here! Stay kind and loving, I wish you peace and comfort. ♥
Enrique