The real child of Philomena Lee
... and it’s not quite the one portrayed in the book or the f ilm. Here, for the f irst time, the man who spent 15 years with Michael reveals the smart, kind, loving man behind the tragic story
‘He was brilliant, with an IQ that was off the chart’ ‘He sang Danny Boy like nobody I ever met’
HIS heart racing, Steve Dahllof took a deep breath to compose himself before opening the door. Though he had never met the woman on the other side, he was immediately struck by her familiar brown eyes. He had last seen those same beautiful brown eyes a decade earlier, on August 15, 1995, when he held a dying Michael Hess — his soulmate and boyfriend for 15 years — in his arms.
‘Jane looked like Michael’s twin. I felt Michael’s eyes were looking at me, and then I saw Philomena and I couldn’t hold back the tears,’ remembers Steve. ‘I was so heartbroken for Michael, and felt he had been cheated out of this moment, that the thing Michael had wanted most in the world, I was experiencing but he was not here to be part of it.’
Those who have seen the movie Philomena — nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Oscars — about an Irish woman’s quest to find the son wrenched from her by nuns in a home for unmarried mothers and sold to a family in America, will be f amiliar with the characters of Michael, his birth mother Philomena and half-sister Jane.
But they will be at pains to recognise Steve or indeed this climactic moment on a London doorstep.
In the Hollywood movie, this meeting never happened. Indeed, several scenes in the film, based on the 2009 book The Lost Child Of Philomena Lee by j ournalist Martin Sixsmith, were invented for dramatic effect.
In the Hollywood version, for example, much of Philomena’s quest to find her son, including her first meeting with Steve, unfolds during a road trip she takes with Sixsmith across America. But in real life, Philomena never went to America.
Despite the creative license enjoyed by screenwriters, the heart of the story beats true, according to Steve. Although Steve helped Sixsmith research his book, however, he was deeply unhappy with the journalist’s portrayal of Michael.
Steve insisted on his name being changed in the book, where he is referred to as Pete. But he has now agreed to shed his anonymity and open up to the Irish Daily Mail about the life he shared with his late, great love, Michael Hess.
‘The movie gets ten out of ten for carrying the true spirit of Michael and Philomena’s story,’ Steve says.
‘There are so many different parts to Michael. He was very, very smart — I called him my walking encyclopaedia. I could call him about pop music, celebrities, history, politics… The last thing you ever wanted to do with him is play Trivial Pursuit. He was brilliant, with an IQ that was off the chart. He was incredibly well read, not just smart but wellinformed and educated.
‘Music of all kinds was his passion and he was a DJ in college. Whenever we had parties, he was very careful about what comes after what, from the Stones to KLF to classic rock.
‘On our first real date he made me apricot chicken, but when we later moved to a farm, he started a vegetable garden and became an incredible cook. He planned dinners for friends for days and it was never put on the table until 10pm.
‘ He was so very handsome, especially when he put on a black tie. When he was on television, he used to get fan letters from women who thought he looked like these models on the front of romance novels. One woman stalked him and wanted to marry him or have his children.
‘In the book he was portrayed as a dark, brooding character who went off the rails, partying in gay biker bars and disappearing for weekends. But Michael kept most people at arm’s length and only let a few people in.
‘We didn’t live out in the countryside to have a “gay lifestyle”, our friends were very mixed. Michael held a lot inside him. He wasn’t the most demonstrative person. Some adopted children aren’t affected but he was quite stand- offish until you really earned his trust and he invited you in. For me, the movie redeems Michael.’
Steve met Michael Hess — a brilliant, 28-year-old lawyer, rising through the ranks in the Republican party — at an annual reception on Capitol Hill, called the Seafood Soirée.
‘Michael told me the first night we met that he was from Ireland — he wore that on his sleeve. He was so good-looking but he didn’t pay any attention to me. A few months later, on April 1, 1980, we both arrived late to a housewarming party and he sat next to me and from then on we were never apart.’
For two years, the couple spent weekdays in their high-powered Washington jobs — Steve worked in PR and marketing — and weekends i n their l og cabin i n the West Virginian countryside, where they bought an old dairy farm and spent 12 years lovingly renovating it.
All of his life, Michael Hess was told he was an orphan, abandoned at birth by his unmarried mother at the Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary. When he was three, he was adopted by Doc and Marge Hess — staunch Catholics from St Louis, Missouri — and brought to America along with Mary, another child at the home.
‘Marge had become depressed after two or three miscarriages and desperately wanted a little baby girl after three sons,’ Steve says. ‘Marge’s brother was a Catholic priest and told her he knew an Irish orphanage where he could find her a little girl.
‘They went and met Mary but she would only talk to little Michael, who was called Anthony at the time. When Marge went to say goodbye, Mary was asleep but Anthony was standing in her crib, waving goodbye and wanting to give her a kiss. She welled with tears, rang her husband and asked: “Can I take home two?”’
For a hefty donation, the Hess family secured a son and daughter to take home. Tragically, as they departed one Sunday evening in the run-up to Christmas 1955, Anthony’s birth mother was not far away.
Philomena was still at t he Abbey, slaving in the laundries — her penance for the ‘ sin’ of becoming pregnant, aged 18, outside of wedlock.
Having nurtured her son for three years there, she was forced by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary to sign away all rights to him. ‘Marge never had an inkling Philomena was working in the orphanage,’ says Steve. ‘I can’t imagine she would have agreed to take him, had she known.’
Through the bars of the convent, Philomena cried out as she watched Anthony being bundled into the back of a black car. She remembers him standing up on the back seat and looking back at her. She never saw her son again.
Anthony Lee, renamed Michael Hess, thrived in America, where he grew up to be a gifted student. He attended the prestigious Catholic University of Notre Dame, went to law school and was brought into the White House after being spotted by Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party. When George Bush Sr became president, he made Mike chief legal counsel of the Republican National Committee.
But throughout it all, Michael dreamt of one day being reunited with the mother he thought had abandoned him. ‘Michael always knew he was going to try to find his mother, although he never spoke about it out of respect for Marge,’ says Steve. ‘They all went back to Roscrea — Michael, Marge, Mary and Doc Hess — around the time Michael was at law school, to visit their roots. He never said it openly but it was on his mind. He always cherished his Irish roots and heritage.’
Steve laughs warmly as he remembers how proud Michael was of his Irish origin. ‘I remember the first St Patrick’s Day I went to at his apartment and he had 1,000 green helium balloons hanging from the ceiling with green strings attached — like a forest of green. He loved Sinéad O’Connor and Mary Black and the great female vocal singers and he could do Danny Boy like nobody I ever met.’
Most revealing, however, are the names Michael picked for his dogs, whom he loved like his own children. ‘Michael insisted that they have Irish names so we had Cashel, MacCool, Aengus and Cormac.’
When Michael’s adoptive mother Marge died in 1981, he decided to search for his mother.
‘He started talking about going to Ireland to find her. It ate at him. I said “let’s go” but there was a lot of fear and apprehension on his part.’
It wasn’t until four years later that Michael and Steve made the journey.
‘We went straight to Roscrea. Sister Hildegarde, the nun who had helped at Michael’s birth, was still alive. She came out and spoke to us on the front steps. The nuns were very hospitable and gave us free roam. Michael remembered little things, like the hallway going back to the chapel — little glimpses. I could see it meant a huge amount to him to have that memory. He was very passionate and thrilled to be there.
‘We asked for records and they said they had been lost in the fire before sending us on a wild goose chase to some sort of Catholic records’ centre in Cork. Michael knew his mother’s last name was Lee but had no idea of Philomena’s first name or what his own had been. We stopped all around
Roscrea visiting tombstones and looking for any woman named Lee. We stayed in a B&B run by two old maid sisters who tried to discourage us, saying: “Don’t do it, she mightn’t want you.”
‘Whether they were genuinely concerned having seen other people being rejected or whether they were protecting the nuns, I’ll never know.’
Steve and Michael returned home to America, having made no progress in their search, but vowing to return, which they did four years later.
‘The second time we went back I think the nuns started worrying we would be aggressive so they backed off a little bit. Michael would look in the eyes of people around Roscrea and say: “Some of these people could be my family.” He wasn’t just skipping through, he was looking closely at what people were like.
‘He felt so at home and said Ireland was the place to grow old — the old people are the centre of it in the pubs, and not shunted to the corner. We talked about buying a place there.
‘We stopped at pubs and I’d go for a walk and he’d have ten people in a circle — he was a great storyteller. We always argued about Guinness — I was full after two sips but he loved it. One day we were wandering around the abbey and passed the dilapidated church, and he said: “When I die, I want to be buried here.” He knew he wanted to go back to that place.’
Although he didn’t know it then, three years later Michael would be diagnosed with Aids. He died within a year of his diagnosis, on August 15, 1995, i n George Washington University Hospital, with Steve and his sister Mary by his side.
Steve saw to it that Michael’s wishes to be buried in Roscrea were fulfilled. ‘I was on the board of the World Mercy Fund and I called a high-powered priest I knew and asked if he could help find me a spot to bury Michael’s ashes at the abbey. He said if I had money, we could make it happen.’
So, after a grand memorial service for Michael in Washington, attended by many Republican Party leaders, Steve travelled to Ireland with Michael’s ashes, accompanied by a friend of his and Michael’s called Tom, with whom he is now in a longterm relationship. ‘The nuns were incredibly sweet and had everything arranged for the service and came out and sang and played guitars throughout — it was beautiful.’
On his marble headstone, Steve inscribed the words: ‘Michael Hess, a man of two nations and many talents. Born July 5, 1952, Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea. Died August 15, 1995, Washington DC.’
It proved to be a very important message. Philomena had gone on to train as a nurse, married and had two more children. On what would have been her son’s 50th birthday, she revealed her long-held secret to her family. Her daughter Jane Libberton instigated contact with journalist Sixsmith at a London party in 2004 and their search began in earnest.
In 2005, Jane returned to Sean Ross Abbey — a place her mother had secretly visited numerous times over the years, begging the nuns for news of her son. In a cruel twist, this time the nuns had information for her — Philomena’s son was buried on the premises.
‘She found his tombstone,’ says Steve. ‘That’s how they found out he died — seeing his date of birth and how it said he was a man of two countries. When I heard that, I wanted to meet Philomena.
‘Here was Michael’s mother who found her son and found out he was gay and died of Aids. I wanted to give her a sense of who he really was.’
It was in Martin Sixsmith’s London home that Steve first met Philomena and Jane.
Steve arrived before them from Paris, his bag full of Michael’s memorabilia, and spent an hour laying out photographs of Michael growing up, posters of him starring in high school plays, organising videos of him debating on television, and readying the Celtic silver ring he was wearing when he died to give to Philomena.
‘I have never been so nervous in my life, representing Michael, the son Philomena would never know and
‘How could I get her to know the real Michael?’
bringing him to life. How could I get her to know the real Michael in one afternoon? I wanted to make Michael proud from above.
‘Philomena and I sat on the sofa in Martin’s family room and the afternoon just tumbled out with stories and questions and more tears.
‘I couldn’t believe how like full siblings Michael and Jane looked. Philomena has a l ong face and Michael di d t oo. I can see the resemblance i n pictures of Philomena when she was younger.
‘She’s not the country bumpkin she’s made out to be in the movie, she’s very savvy. You’d have to be, being a psychiatric nurse for 30 years — and Michael got his brilliant intelligence from somewhere.
‘We talked a lot and Philomena said she could never have given Michael the opportunities he had, so was it such a bad thing he was adopted? It wasn’t for me because I spent some of the best years of my life with him.
‘Being so smart I can’t imagine he would have been held down by his socio- economic situation at birth. But what would it have been like being gay in Ireland during that period?’
Although Steve has not seen Philomena since that day — he has been living in Asia for four years — he has kept in touch and he hopes to meet with her and Jane when they are in LA for the Oscars on March 2.
‘If there is such a thing as an afterlife, Michael would be so happy with the way Philomena has handled it, the class with which she has carried herself through it all. He would have been particularly proud of her and his sister — I know that.’
But the pain Steve feels about how Michael was cheated out of his dream of meeting his mother has not dimmed with time.
‘That Michael never realised any of that is so, so sad,’ says Steve. ‘Michael died not knowing anything about Philomena, nothing — and that was absolutely tragic.
‘Michael was just like his mother [Marge] in that you couldn’t say any wrong about the Catholic Church. Intellectually, I don’t think he believed in all the doctrines but it was all very private to him and one daren’t speak against the Church. If Michael knew what had really happened he would be absolutely furious, he would go absolutely nuts.
‘They were running a children’s laundry, making money off the children and nobody can justify that. Now it’s out in the open what they were doing, the Church is deservedly getting the slap in the face it deserves.’