“Father Stu,” which was directed by Rosalind Ross, is a moving drama movie. It’s about an amateur boxer named Stuart Long who quits boxing after getting hurt and moves to Los Angeles to look for work. In the movie, which was based on the book, Mark Wahlberg played Father Stu.
Some of the other actors in the movie are Emily Watson, Ethan Hawke, Richard Schiff, and Frank Langella.
The movie is about Stuart Long, who used to be a boxer but then became a priest. So that his girlfriend Carmen will agree to marry him, he starts going to church. But a motorcycle accident changes his mind. When he finds out what his true calling is in life, he follows God’s plan and becomes a well-known Catholic priest.
The story of “Father Stu” is heartwarming, and the characters are realistic. Because the movie is so powerful, everyone is wondering if it is based on the life of a real person. Who does Father Stu date in real life? Are you also curious to know? In this article, we’ll talk about all of that and more.
Was Father Stu A Real Person?
“Father Stu” is a movie that is based on a true story. The biographical movie shows the amazing life of Father Stuart Long, who was born on July 26, 1963, and died on June 9, 2014. He was a boxer who became a priest after converting to Catholicism. He was born in Seattle, Washington, and went to Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where he got interested in football and boxing. Long went on to win the heavyweight title at the Montana Golden Gloves in 1985. The following year, 1986, he came in second. He got a rare muscle disorder that got worse as time went on.
When he was young, his parents moved back to Helena, Montana, where they had grown up.
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Long went to the private Catholic college Carroll College in Helena. He played football for two years and then switched to boxing. Long graduated from Carroll College in 1986 with a degree in English literature and writing.
Whose Dad Is He? Stu’s Real-Life Girlfriend?
In the movie, Carmen, Father Stu’s girlfriend, was based on a woman Stuart Long fell in love with in real life. Just like in the movie, she was the one who first told him about God.
Cindy was Father Stu’s girlfriend. She was a devout Catholic who went to mass every week, and the two of them lived in the same apartment. She told him that he would have to become a Roman Catholic before they could get married. They lived toget her at the time of his accident.
So, Long joined the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and went to classes for a year and a half. But after he was baptized in the late 1990s, his mind changed quickly. In an interview, he said, “I didn’t hear God’s voice or see a big flag fall from the sky or anything else. I just knew I was going to be a priest when the priest was pouring water over my head at my baptism.” His girlfriend and family were surprised by his choice, but they eventually came to terms with it.
Even though the real Stuart Long doesn’t seem to have called her by name in interviews, she looks a lot like Carmen from the movie. “This girlfriend, she was a beautiful woman,” Father Stu said. “She was a girl from Mexico. She had dark, dark skin, dark eyes. She was a very nice person.
Why Did Father Stu Quit Boxing, And What Did He Do After That?
After a painful jaw surgery, Long stopped boxing and moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at acting. As an extra, he was in a few commercials and small roles. After having some bad experiences with casting directors and talent scouts, Stu decided to leave the movie business. He also went to acting auditions during the day while he worked at a comedy club’s bar at night.
Later, Long became the manager of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. At that time, he was riding home on his motorcycle when he was in a bad accident. After coming close to dying, he started to change the way he thought about God and life.
When Long left the museum in 1998, he taught for three years at a Catholic school. After that, he worked with the Capuchin Friars in poor areas of New York. Later, he got a master’s degree in philosophy from Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. He then went to Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon to train to be a priest.
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At the time, Long had a hip tumor taken out, which led to him getting inclusion body myositis (IBM), a rare and fatal autoimmune disease. Long was finally made a priest in 2007 at the Cathedral of Saint Helena in Montana. He had to use crutches just to walk. After he was ordained, he worked at the Little Flower Parish in Browning for two years before going back there for a short time.
Long finally moved to the Big Sky Care Center in Helena, where he worked in the nursing home and parishes, with the help of his father, Bill Long. He died early in the morning of June 9, 2014, after spending the previous four years serving God and the community. The Resurrection Cemetery in Helena is where he was laid to rest.
