In a final romantic gesture that friends are calling "exhaustively cinematic," the late Owen Thorne has managed to surprise his grieving widow, Eloise Thorne, one last time. Yesterday morning, a handwritten declaration of eternal love was hand-delivered to the Thorne estate not by a lawyer or a priest, but by a man identified as Kevin Costner’s primary stunt double from the mid-90s.
The courier, 57-year-old stuntman Terry, arrived at the gates of the Palm Beach mansion on horseback, despite the property being located in a gated community with strict HOA regulations against livestock. Dressed in a distressed duster coat and a hat, Terry reportedly refused to break character while handing over the envelope.
"He didn't say much," said the Thorne family's head of security, Marcus Gentry. "He just squinted into the middle distance, recited some lines about 'destiny,' and handed Mrs. Thorne a cream-colored envelope sealed with wax. Then he tried to rear the horse up, but the animal seemed tired, so he just sort of turned it around slowly and trotted over the hydrangeas."
![cowboy delivers letter](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/697bf7fa3ec891017afadc13/abb3b812-e445-4385-baa6-cf75254cbfb1/d07761c4-3ba6-450b-9428-f381451da3cd.png?content-type=image%2Fjpeg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg")
Terry has a <3 letter for Mrs. Thorne.
Owen Thorne, who passed away last month at age 88, had apparently arranged the delivery 36 years prior when the couple renewed their vows, and the letter was completely forgotten. According to the executor of his estate, Thorne insisted that a standard postal delivery lacked "gravitas." He specifically requested a man who "looked like he could build a baseball field in a cornfield but was decidedly cheaper to hire."
The letter itself, which Eloise Thorne read aloud to a bewildered brunch gathering, contained four pages of prose comparing their 60-year marriage to "a frontier sun that never sets." It concluded with a specific request for Eloise to refrain from remarriage.
"It was very moving, mostly because of the logistics involved," Eloise noted, wiping away a tear while sipping a mimosa. "Owen always said he wanted his love to outlive him. I just didn’t realize he meant hiring a man who once got the bends filming Waterworld to bring me the mail."