Alex Forrest (1987 Film)

**Alex Forrest** is a main character in the Paramount Pictures 1987 film *Fatal Attraction* portrayed by Glenn Close.

## History

Alexandra "Alex" Forrest, an editor for a publishing company eventually meets Dan Gallagher, a successful and happily married lawyer from Manhattan. While his wife, Beth, and daughter, Ellen, are out of town for the weekend, Dan has an affair with Alex. Initially, starting a a fling, Alex begins to cling to Dan. After leaving abruptly in the middle of the night, Dan reluctantly spends the following day with Alex at her request. When he tries to leave again, she cuts her wrists to force him to stay. Dan helps her bandage the cuts, stays with her overnight to ensure she is all right, and leaves in the morning. Although Dan thinks the affair is forgotten, Alex shows up at his office to apologize for her behavior and invites him to a performance of Madame Butterfly. He declines politely. Alex continues to call him at his office until he informs his secretary that he will no longer take her calls. Undeterred, Alex starts calling Dan's home at all hours, claiming that she is pregnant and intends to keep the baby. Despite Dan's desire to have nothing to do with her, she argues that he must take responsibility. After he changes his home phone number, Alex shows up at his apartment, which is for sale, and meets Beth while feigning interest as a buyer. Later that night, Dan goes to Alex's apartment to confront her, and they get into a scuffle. In response, she tells him that she will not be ignored. Despite Dan relocating his family to Bedford, this does not dissuade Alex. She has a tape recording of herself delivered to him, which is full of verbal abuse. She then proceeds to stalk him in a parking garage, pours acid on his car, damaging the engine, and follows him home one night, spying on him, Beth, and Ellen from the bushes in their yard. The sight of the family makes her sick to her stomach. Her obsession escalates when Dan approaches the police to apply for a restraining order against Alex, claiming it is "for a client." The lieutenant informs Dan that he cannot violate Alex's rights without probable cause, and that the "client" must own up to his adultery. At one point, when the Gallaghers are away, Alex kills Ellen's pet rabbit and puts it on their stove to boil. Dan confesses the affair and Alex's alleged pregnancy to Beth. Dan calls Alex to inform her that Beth knows about the affair. Beth takes the phone and threatens Alex, saying she will kill her if she persists.

Without Dan and Beth's knowledge, Alex picks up Ellen from school and takes her to an amusement park. Beth becomes terrified when she cannot locate Ellen and drives around frantically looking for her. Alex returns Ellen home unharmed, asking for a kiss on the cheek. This leads to Dan forcibly entering Alex's apartment and attempts to strangle her, but stops short of killing her. As he releases her, she grabs a kitchen knife and lunges at him, but he disarms her and departs as she watches with a smile. The police search for Alex after Dan reports the kidnapping. Beth forgives Dan after her release from the hospital, and they return home.One day, while Beth is taking a bath, Alex suddenly appears with the knife and explains her belief that Beth is obstructing her from having Dan. She attacks Beth, and Dan rushes in to wrestle her into the bathtub, where he appears to drown her. But Alex suddenly emerges from the water, brandishing the knife. Beth then shoots and kills Alex with Dan's revolver.

### Alternate Ending

Alex Forrest was originally scripted slashing her throat at the film's end with the knife Dan had left on the counter, so as to make it appear that Dan had murdered her. After seeing her husband being taken away by police, Beth finds a revealing cassette tape that Alex sent Dan in which she threatens to kill herself. Upon realizing Alex's intentions, Beth takes the tape to the police, who clear Dan of the murder. The last scene shows, in flashback, Alex taking her own life by slashing her throat while listening to *Madame Butterfly*. After doing test screenings, Joseph Farrell (who handled the test screenings) suggested that Paramount shoot a new ending. In the 2002 Special Edition DVD, Close comments that she had doubts about re-shooting the film's ending because she believed the character would "self-destruct and commit suicide". Close eventually gave in on her concerns, and filmed the new sequence after having fought against the change for two weeks. Close has described how protective she was of her character, whom she "never thought of as a villain", stating that: "I wasn't playing a generality, I wasn't playing a cliché. I was playing a very specific, deeply disturbed, fragile human being, whom I had grown to love." However, though the ending made Alex into a "psychopath" against Close's wishes, she has also acknowledged that the film would not have experienced the enormous success it did without the new ending, because it gave the audience "a sense of catharsis, a hope, that somehow the family unit would survive the nightmare".

## Trivia

* The new ending of the film was shot a whole six months later after they had completed the movie. By that time, Close was pregnant, and didn’t have a clue! It was only after getting a concussion while working on a stunt, the actress was rushed to the hospital. It was there, the star received the news that she was pregnant.

## References

1. ↑ Joseph Farrell, Who Used Market Research to Shape Films, Dies at 76 - NY Times
2. ↑ SHADOW FORCE - LA Times
3. ↑ Fatal Attraction Reunion Interview - YouTube
4. ↑ Glenn Close and The Untold Truths Of Fatal Attraction - TV Over Mind