Two women reflect on their 65-year relationship in the trailer for A Secret Love, out April 29th on Netflix.
Directed by Chris Bolan, the clip features Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel inquiring about a room in a nursing home. They are told by an employee that they don’t have any same-sex couples in residence; “Would they be accepting?” Donahue asks. “Because we are a couple.”
Donahue and Henschel began a romantic relationship six decades ago in secret — right after Donahue played ball for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired the Penny Marshall-directed 1992 film A League of Their Own. “They were playing baseball,” a narrator intones. “Women didn’t do that. They had the courage to do something so different in a time when difference was not looked on as something good.”
The documentary captures their long-lasting relationship and the obstacles they’ve tackled along the way, from their conservative families to gay bars raid and illness. “I felt like I was sort of living a lie,” Donahue says. “I love my mother, but she would have disowned me.”
A Secret Love is Bolan’s directorial debut. It was produced by Alexa L. Fogel, Brendan Mason and Ryan Murphy. It was executive-produced by Blumhouse.