In Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, the famed musician’s relationship with a woman named Faye Romano features heavily but who is the real Springsteen girlfriend who inspired the character?
Deliver Me From Nowhere, which stars Jeremy Allen White as the iconic singer-songwriter, focuses on the making of Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska with some callbacks to Springsteen’s early childhood and his relationship with his father (played by Stephen Graham).
While it’s hard to remember Springsteen’s romantic life before his relationship with wife of 34 years Patti Scialfa, the movie focuses on a different Springsteen love.
Who Is Bruce Springsteen’s Ex-Girlfriend Faye Romano?
Faye Romano is a fictional character played by Odessa Young in Springsteen’s biopic who is inspired by several ex-girlfriends including model Joyce Hyser. Faye, a young single mother that Springsteen falls in love with in the movie, is a composite character based on women Springsteen dated during this period.
From 1978 through 1982, the period during which Deliver Me From Nowhere is set, Springsteen was in a relationship with Hyser. “Bruce and I were together for almost 5 years. I grew up with him. We are friends to this day,” Hyser, who went on to date Warren Beatty for a year, told Rediscover the 80s in 2020.
After Springsteen and Hyser broke up, he had a series of shorter relationships which also inspired the character of Faye Romano. In his 2016 memoir, Born to Run, Springsteen refers to a “lovely 20-year-old girlfriend” from this time. Given that Hyser was 25 years old in 1982, Springsteen must have been referring to another woman who he presumably didn’t want to make a character in the film.
In Born to Run, Springsteen makes it clear that he was struggling to have deep relationships at this point in his life, suggesting that Faye Romano is likely inspired by several different failed relationships.
“Two years inside of any relationship and it would simply stop,” he wrote. “As soon as I got close to exploring my frailties, I was gone. You were gone. One pull of the pin, it’d be over and I’d be down the road, tucking another sad ending in my pack. It was rarely the women themselves I was trying to get away from. I had many lovely girlfriends I cared for and who really cared for me. It was what they triggered, the emotional exposure, the implications of a life of commitments and family burdens.… With the end of each affair, I’d feel a sad relief from the suffocating claustrophobia love had brought me.”
