On this date... 29 years ago

On Sept 26, 1991, a major TV show debuted that—for the first time—featured a deaf or hard of hearing actor in a lead role. The NBC police drama Reasonable Doubts ran from 1991–1993 and starred Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin as Tess Kaufman, a prosecutor who fought for the rights of the accused. She portrayed a lawyer who happened to be deaf—instead of just a deaf lawyer. In 1994, she joined the cast of Picket Fences for a couple of seasons. The Seinfeld TV show made a nod to Reasonable Doubts during an episode called The Pitch. When Jerry and George visit NBC they sit under a poster showing Mark Harmon and Marlee Matlin was on the wall of Seinfeld episode.

Marlee Matlin Implores Hiring of More Deaf Actors

Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin is working to recognize the talents of deaf and disabled actors as they struggle for work in Hollywood. She talks about it in this New York Times video.

What Marlee Matlin Did In Quarantine

Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin is so bored In quarantine she pulled out the dress she wore to that fateful 1987 Oscars ceremony and tried it on again. Read what happened here.

Marlee Matlin vs Delta Airlines

Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin is calling out Delta Airlines for failing to provide captions for its videos during flights.

Sad to see that my preferred airline, @Delta flight 1998 has provisions for various languages and audio description for in-flight entertainment but no closed captions for deaf and hard of hearing flyers. #noaccess #stillwaiting for #ADAcompliance pic.twitter.com/CXnmqbHSDB

— Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) December 26, 2019

The Air Carrier Access Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability on airlines.

Life and Deaf

image from MarleeMatlin.net

Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin has developed a new comedy series that may be picked up by Disney. It's called Life and Deaf and is based on the life of Matlin's long-time interpreter, Jack Jason. The show is set in the 1970s and tells the story of a kid growing up with deaf parents. Read more about it at Deadline Hollywood.

The Weather Channel Neglects Captioning During Hurricane

Oscar-winning deaf actress Marlee Matlin alerted the Weather Channel through a tweet that a video about Hurricane Michael was posted without captioning or a sign language interpreter. The storm was approaching the Gulf Coast of Florida at the time, making it critical to get emergency information to everyone—but the Weather Channel failed to respond.

Horror Film Casting Blasted

Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin and model Nyle DiMarco are among those in the Deaf community criticizing a new horror film called The Silence. A hearing actress was cast in a deaf role. Director John Leonetti told The Hollywood Reporter that the hearing actress has “flawless” signing and an almost “innate sense of what it’s like being a deaf person.” The film comes out in December. Read more here.

Marlee Matlin talks about on her new show

Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin appeared on KTLA-TV this morning to talk about her special Deaf Out Loud. There are no captions and KTLA misspelled her last name in the "lower third" but she did talk about the premieres of the show, which is September 12 on A&E Network.

Marlee Matlin Produced Docu

Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin is an executive producer of a new documentary called "Deaf Out Loud." The A&E special premieres September 12. The film is about "three deaf families as they raise their children in a hearing world." Here's a preview.

Revival of Children of a Lesser God

This coming Thursday (March 22) Studio 54 in New York will present a revival of Children of a Lesser God. The play was a Tony Award-winner when it first appeared in 1980 with Phyllis Frelich (who won a Tony for best actress) and John Rubinstein (who won a Tony for Best Actor). Mark Medoff wrote the lay and adopted it for the big screen in 1986. The film starred William Hurt and Marlee Matlin, who won an Academy Award for her performance. In the revival, 39-year-old deaf actress Lauren Ridloff (a former Miss Deaf America) takes the lead role. The producers hired a "director of artistic sign language” to ensure the quality of the signing. But tickets for the show here.

Marlee Matlin honored in Israel

Oscar Winning Deaf Actress Marlee Matlin took her first trip to Israel recently. She was honored for disability advocacy and spoke with i24 News about life in Hollywood and her Jewish roots.

Marlee on Hollywood Medium

Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin appears on tonight's episode of Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry. She wants to learn the real story behind how she became deaf at 18 months.

A Talk With Marlee Matlin

photo by Angela George

      photo by Angela George

The Hartford Courant sat down to talk with Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin before she speaks tonight at the American School for the Deaf's Bicentennial Celebration at the Connecticut Convention Center. She was asked about how things have changed in Hollywood since she won her Oscar at the young age of 21:

I did "Dancing With the Stars," and people said, "hey, deaf people can dance." I raised a million dollars for hearing aids for children on "Celebrity Apprentice." I try to show by what I do that deaf people don't have to be put in a little box. But we still have "disability blackface," where 95 percent of television characters with a disability on television are played by able-bodied actors. You still have the thinking that deaf actors only act in deaf storylines; any story line can feature an actor who is deaf. The topic needs to be part of our conversation.

Read more of what she said here.

"Strange and illogical" Hollywood stereotypes

from the Ruderman Family Foundation 

Acadamy Award winner Marlee Matlin took part in a panel at the Ruderman Studio-Wide Roundtable on Disability Inclusion in Los Angeles. Matlin, along with other actors and filmmakers debunked some of the weird myths and preconceptions they had to work around in their careers. Read the full story from BuzzFeed here.

Marlee Matlin on Trump Insult

image from MarleeMatlin.net

Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin is speaking out about reports that Donald Trump called her "retarded" while she was a contestant on The Apprentice. Matlin told her Twitter followers, "The fact that we are talking about this during a very important moment in American history has upset me deeply." Read more from ET here.

Report: Trump called Marlee Matlin "retarded"

Donald Trump called a Academy Award winning actress Marlee Matlin "retarded" according to three sources who spoke anonymously with The Daily Beast. The deaf actress competed on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2011. The information came from longtime staffers of the show who said Trump would make fun of her voice. One staffer said when he did this in front of her "she stood up for herself." Read the full story here.

Marlee Matlin signing at the Super Bowl

If you watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday, expecting to see Marlee Matlin signing the national anthem as Lady Gaga sing it, then you were among the many who were disappointed--including the Oscar winner herself. Matlin tells ET she was "genuinely surprised" to find out she was cut from the TV broadcast, but says, "ultimately, that decision was not mine to make." Here's what she had to say about Lady Gaga:

When she finished the national anthem, I turned to her and signed, "I love you," and she signed it right back. Later in her dressing room, she and I had a chance to speak, and I told her my kids were big fans of hers. She couldn't have been nicer. I told her anytime she wanted to learn to sign to give a call, and she said, "Yes!"

Read more from ET here.

Marlee Matlin talks Broadway

Marlee Matlin and some of the cast members of Deaf West's Spring Awakening shared with Good Morning America what it's like to be a part of the Broadway show.


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Marlee coming to Broadway!

image from http://www.marleematlin.net

Deaf West’s Spring Awakening is getting a boast from the announcement that Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin will join the cast when the show hits Broadway in September. A news release quotes Matlin as saying, “It’s been 30 years since I had the opportunity to be part of the groundbreaking Children of a Lesser God and I couldn’t be more proud and honored to have been asked to join Deaf West Theatre’s innovative revival of Spring Awakening on Broadway.” Previews begin at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre Tuesday, September 8 with opening night set for Sunday, September 27. The show will run through Saturday, January 9.

The Power of Deaf Women

Marlee Matlin appears in a new (short) video about the "power of deaf women" sponsored by DeafNation. If you want to submit a woman's story, click here.