From the Cover: From "I'll Call Ya" to Forever: The Film Set Love Story of Amy and Ken Ferris

Banner Photo of Ken & Amy Ferris by Nicole Yori-Gibson

Editor's Note: Ken Ferris passed on 19 March 2026. He was the love of Amy's life. There is a quote, often attributed to various sources, that feels true here: "Where there is great love, there are always miracles." — Willa Cather

As we celebrate the launch of Amy's new book, Amy in Retrograde: Desperately Seeking Rewiring, we pause to remember how it all started — and why it mattered.

He was the cameraman. I was the girl screenwriter. It was September, the beginning of Labor Day weekend, 1992. We had met on the movie. It was, you know, movie-magic, and he said those three little magic words after we shared a few hours and a couple of drinks at a dive bar on Amsterdam Avenue with a great jukebox that played Van Morrison and k.d. lang and Lou Reed and Marvin Gaye — he said, and I'm quoting: "I'll call ya."

I'll. Call. Ya.

And yes, I waited by the phone because back then we didn't have little itsy-bitsy cellphones or texting or instant messaging. We had massive phone machines the size of a shoe box; phone machines with remotes the size of a shoe so you could actually stand in a phone booth for hours on end retrieving and replaying your voice messages.

As always, I digress.

I was Velcroed to my landline during the long — long — Labor Day weekend. I refused to leave my apartment. In my mind, my oh so fucking vivid imagination, he — Ken — was partying and drinking and carousing and having tons of sex with unnamed women with long legs and short names who he was picking up at bars. For that one weekend I was playing a duet: Vicki Carr and Ray Milland; Oh God it must be him, while nursing White Russians — the drink, not men.

I mustered my courage, and showed up on the set Tuesday at around lunch hour so as not to cause too much of a scene.

He was high up on a crane over the 59th Street Bridge, having just finished a shot with Matt Dillon and James Gandolfini.

I stood there, hands planted firmly on my hips, and in a loud voice — a hair short of a guttural shrill — in front of, yes, the entire cast and crew and catering — shouted that he had lied to me: "You, up there on the crane, you lied to me and I thought you were different from other men. You said you were gonna call and you didn't call and I pegged you wrong, buddy. So, fuck you. Fuck you hard."

James Gandolfini came over to me, and in his cool and sheepish way, told me I was the coolest chick he ever met.

The director, Anthony Minghella — may he rest in power and peace — laughed uproariously and said out loud, "You, my dear funny Amy, have a set of platinum balls."

It was right then and there that I knew that platinum was much more valuable than gold.

The crane came down. He — Ken — said, "I had a friend in from LA." I asked: "Did you just say you got laid?" He said, "LA. Los Angeles, my friend Elliot is in town from LA — we, you know, just hung out."

It took him about, oh, two minutes, and then he said, "I'll never do that again."

And…

Ken's called me ever since.