'Sleepless in Seattle' at 30: Real-life radio host Delilah still thinks love conquers all

“Sleepless In Seattle,” director Nora Ephron’s iconic take on a drawn-out meet cute hit theaters 30 years ago. The film’s narrative arc revolves around a call-in radio show. Meg Ryan’s Annie Reed stumbles on the station midway through a late-night drive and is immediately enthralled by the story of widower Sam Baldwin, played by Tom Hanks. Baldwin’s son has called into the show to say his dad needs a new wife.

The host, Dr. Marcia Fieldstone is cloying and a bit intrusive, but her singular style draws out a story from Sam about his wife that so captures Annie’s attention that viewers spend the rest of the film watching as she slowly loses her mind in pursuit of him.

So much of the movie exists on a plane elevated from reality, propelled by magic and "signs." So it may come as a surprise the radio host is real. Well, kind of.

It is widely assumed that the character is based on Delilah, a nationally syndicated radio host who pioneered the call-in format and whose voice bears a remarkable resemblance to Fieldstone’s.

“I’ve probably watched it a dozen times,” Delilah says of the movie. She remembers doing a double-take when she first saw it in theaters. “It’s not really a stretch that people would think that a movie based on a nationally syndicated call-in show that’s heard coast to coast hosted by a female might have something to do with me” she jokes. “I’m the only person in the world that does that and I lived in Seattle at the time.”

Like Cher, she’s just Delilah. The double “L” makes for a sing-song quality that matches her folksy charm. And that voice? It’s not a parody. Low and saccharine, it’s reminiscent of the syrup that gets left at the bottom of snack-pack fruit cups.

On any given evening she can be heard crackling through the airwaves, coaxing listeners to tell her their dreams or share their love stories. She's one of the most listened to women in American radio. Her show airs on most local stations between 7 p.m. and midnight and reaches some 8.3 million listeners each month, according to her radio reps who cite a Nielsen Fall 2022 Nationwide survey. She’s dubbed herself “a companion on the radio at night” and in between ballads, she takes calls and doles out advice.  

It’s a format she minted in 1984 when, as a fledgling radio DJ in Seattle she started talking to the people who phoned in to request a song. “For me, the calls were far more fascinating than the music,” she explains, “It’s like a hairdresser; they would just pour out their heart to me.”

In the movie what catches Annie’s attention is Sam’s disarming vulnerability. Out of nowhere, he’s spilling his guts, talking about the way his wife could peel an apple in one long strand and the feel of her palm. The grounding thesis is that a stranger’s story if it hits you in the right place, can cut through the noise and tether your life and their life. That hail-mary quality of someone laying bare their heart for thousands of unknown listeners to hear is certainly enough to still the radio dial.

'You're listening to Delilah'

Ephron’s signature whimsy provides a certain escapism for watchers. “That’s your problem! You don’t want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie,” says Rosie O’Donnell’s best friend character (a sarcastic foil for Ryan), gesturing with a wink to the audience at the internal logic of the film.

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A good rom-com of course is built on a shared assumption that everything is dipped a little in gloss. Sam’s picturesque houseboat, Annie’s pink kitchen − the movie practically hits you over the head with charm. We love it because it couldn’t possibly be true. Right?

Delilah begs to differ. “That was a less-than-two-hour movie but it’s my life every day all day,” she says. It’s as if once the credits roll the rest of us are forced back into reality but Delilah gets to live in that suspended plane.

The people who call in don’t always offer up "neat" love stories, but that’s what makes them real. Listeners get the opportunity to run their hands along the familiar grooves in recognition, remembering the ones they let get away, or the ones they let down.

“I am fascinated by the human condition,” she says, “When somebody calls and they have a story I want to know how did you get to the mess that you’re in right now?”

A call made for the movies

“Some of our calls are like hit records,” she says.

One, she confesses, she always thought might be the inspiration for “Sleepless in Seattle.” A man called in to dedicate a song to his long-lost love. He had lost contact with her after shipping off to fight in the Vietnam War. Next thing she knows, Delilah is receiving a call from a woman claiming to be this long-lost love's best friend. She had double-dated with them to prom. Delilah aired the call.

The woman herself then calls in to say that he dumped her and she never heard from him again. Armed with both phone numbers, Delilah connected the couple off the air and a few days later she heard from the original caller.

The couple had met for a meal and when they reunited she told him she had a surprise in store. It was her 21-year-old daughter. When he left for the war she was pregnant. He had written her but the letters got lost. “The last call I got was the daughter calling to ask me if I could come to her mom and dad’s wedding,” Delilah says, choked up retelling the story.

“I’ve been blessed to be a part of some pretty amazing stories,” she says. For each story, there is a song, and for Delilah, they're all love songs.

Queen of sappy love songs

Not just a relationship guru, Delilah can jockey disc with the best of them. Her tastes range from Mariah Carey to Phil Collins to Marvin Gaye − all masters of the love song. On a recent show a man called in to dedicate a song to a close friend he was pining after. Delilah played “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon. For another caller who had just left an abusive marriage, it was “I Can See Clearly Now” by Jimmy Cliff.

Asked if in another life she was a poet or a lyricist she jokes “I am a poet and a lyricist in this life but in another life, I had a better voice and I could sing them.”

That ability to match a ballad to a caller is born of a love of lyrics. “Some people have sayings on their wall or scriptures that are framed or Taoisms or whatever you call it that resonate as truth to them. For me a well-crafted, well-written lyric becomes like a cornerstone of truth to me” she says.

So song titles become like koans: I will always love you. Always be my baby. That groovy kind of love. You get the picture?

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At the end of "Sleepless in Seattle," Sam and Annie get their meet cute on the top of the Empire State Building, and sentimentality triumphs, just as it does on Delilah's show every night. Listeners tune in to have their heartstrings plucked on purpose and to engage in sappiness without irony.

“Hopefully with age comes wisdom… You get varicose veins and a backache but hopefully, you have wisdom. And there’s going to come a time when I’m going to say goodbye to this life," she says. "If you’re like me and you believe there’s an afterlife – the only thing I get to take with me is love. The love that I’ve fostered, the love that I planted, the love that I’ve encouraged. I don’t get to take wealth or money or my plants or my big tomatoes. I get to take love.”