Tanya Zaricor
05/10/2007
Marlee Matlin
Marlee
Beth Matlin was born August 24th 1965. She became
deaf at 18 months old because of Roseola Infantum. Marlee was
involved in theater at a young age. Marlee's first acting
experience was when she played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at
the age of seven and she continued to act after graduating
college in Pallatine Illinois where she studied criminal
justice.
She played one of the secondary roles in the Tony award winning
play Children of a Lesser God. The play is about a speech
teacher at a school for the deaf who falls in love with a Deaf
woman. Her performance was so outstanding that she was asked to
play the leading role of Sarah in the 1986 film version. At
twenty-one years old she was starring in her first film. She did
such a great job playing Sarah in the movie that she won the
Golden Globe award for best actress in a drama and the Academy
Award for best actress. She was the first Deaf person to win
either of those awards and she was the youngest to ever win them
at that time (IMDB, 2007, paragraph 1-3).
Since 1986 she has added to her list of films and television
shows that she has acted in. She has also recently authored two
published books about a young Deaf girl and her life. The first
book she wrote is titled Deaf Child Crossing and her second book
is titled Nobody's Perfect. Deaf Child Crossing was written
similar to how Marlee felt as a kid and deals with similar
situations and feelings that she experienced growing up deaf and
becoming Deaf (IMDB, 2007, paragraph 4 ).
Marlee has advocated for getting "Closed Captioning" on all
televisions that are larger than thirteen inches. She testified
at a Congressional hearing in 1995 and helped to get that law
passed. All televisions now have built-in chips that provide
viewers with the closed captioning option (Marlee Online, 2007,
paragraph 4).
"The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind"
--Marlee Matlin
References
American Foundation for the Blind.
(2007) "Helen Keller Biography", [Online]. Available:
http://www.afb.org/braillebug/helen_keller_bio.asp (May 3,
2007).
Crouch, Barry A. & SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Van
Cleve, John V. (1989). A Place of Their Own: Creating the
Deaf Community in America. Washington, D.C. Gallaudet
University Press.
Foster, Ray. (2001). "Laurent Clerc",
[Online]. Available: http://www.famousamericans.net (May, 3
2007).
HKSB: Biography of Helen Keller,
[Online]. Available: http://www.helenkeller.org (April 19,
2007).
IMDB. (1990-2007). "Biography of
Marlee Matlin". [Online]. Available: http://www.imdb.com (May
31, 2007).
Marlee Matlin "Biography &
Filmography", [Online]. Available:
www.marleeonline.com/lifebio/printbio.html (May 10, 2007).