What Happened to Brandon Teena’s Most Famous Ex?
(Boys Don’t Cry and The Brandon Teena Story)
The last time Lana Tisdel’s name came up in the press was the year 2000, when she settled a lawsuit with movie distributor Searchlight Pictures for an undisclosed sum.
Although she came off as a protagonist in the 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry, Tisdel didn’t care much for the Hollywood treatment.
Dramatic-license violation: She alleged that the movie used her life story without her permission and unfairly depicted her as a habitual drinker and drug user.
Tisdel (pictured above in her 20s), who had dated Brandon Teena — who was born a girl named Teena Brandon but dressed and lived as a man — also called out Boys Don’t Cry for falsely portraying her as having been present during the shootings that killed Brandon, 22, and witnesses Lisa Lambert, 24, and Phillip Devine, 22, just before New Year’s Day of 1994.
Ex-cons John Lotter and Thomas Nissen had targeted Brandon Teena for murder to quiet a rape case against the two ex-cons.
Maury comes knocking. A year before Boys Don’t Cry, Tisdel herself had appeared in the documentary The Brandon Teena Story, and she seemed like a sympathetic character there, too.
Shortly after the movies came out, Lana and her mother appeared on A Current Affair and The Maury Povich Show.
So what’s become of the hardscrabble, karaoke-loving Nebraska girl portrayed by actress Chloë Sevigny on the big screen?
Pretty as ever. Today, she maintains a presence on the internet, but she uses her married name, Lana Bachman, and probably isn’t looking to satisfy curiosity seekers.
She has a daughter and two sons and at least one grandchild.
Lana, who in her youth resembled actress Jodie Foster, still has long beautiful strawberry blond hair. She has become more striking with maturity.
It’s not clear what type of work she does or whether she and her husband are still together. (She hitched up with a guy from her hometown of Falls City on Dec. 6, 2001, according to Douglas County records.)
Struggle to survive. Sadly, her mother, Linda Gutierres, who came off as a flawed but not irredeemable character in the documentary, died in 2003 at the age of 54.
Her obituary didn’t disclose her cause of death.
Linda Gutierres had a rough life. She was wounded in a stabbing attack by an ex-husband and supported her family on a monthly disability check of less than $400, according to an account by writer Eric Konigsberg, who grew up in Omaha.
Including Lana, Linda Gutierres left four children behind.
Unwitting accomplice. Lana’s father, L.L. Tisdel, was not included in either film but inadvertently played a role in springing Brandon Teena from jail.
He gave Lana a blank check for a perm, but she used it to pay Brandon’s $250 in bail instead.
L.L. Tisdel died in 2007 at the age of 71.
In August 2020, Lana suffered a new tragedy when her Ford pickup crossed a center line and fatally injured Chrysler minivan driver Glenn D. Aston in a head-on crash in Fairview, Kansas. Lana herself suffered injuries requiring hospitalization, but she has since recovered. (Thanks to reader Charlene for writing in with the update.)
You can watch the interviews with Lana Tisdel and Linda Gutierres in the documentary on YouTube.
That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR
Read Part I: Brandon Teena’s Killers: 25 Years Later
