Yes, Marlee Matlin is deaf. She is also Jewish, married, a mother, an author, an actress, and an activist. She never allowed her disability to define her, and she never gave up, instead she continues to inspire others as she helps those less fortunate through her many charitable endeavors.
When she was just seven years old, she took on the role of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at a local children’s theater. She had lost her hearing at 18 months due to a malformed cochlea, but she finished school and studied criminal justice in college. She continued to act, mainly on stage, and in 1986 she made her first film, Children of a Lesser God. Although it was her first leading role, she won an Academy Award for it, becoming the youngest actress to do so, and one of only four women to have won for her first film. She’s also the only deaf actress to win an Oscar, though that’s just a comment for a woman who believes “the downside of deafness isn’t in the ear, it’s in the mind.”
A Golden Globe for Children of a Lesser God also came that year, and he has two other nominations, as well as four Emmy nominations under his belt. She has made appearances over the years in other movies and many TV shows ranging from Sesame Street to CSI: NY, Desperate Housewives, ER, Seinfeld, and The West Wing.
More recently, fans have seen Marlee Matlin on Dancing with the Stars and Celebrity Apprentice, where she won a record amount of money for her charity of choice, though she didn’t win the title. She is also an author and wrote Deaf Child’s Crossing and Nobody’s Perfect. More recently her autobiography came out, called I’ll Scream Later, a nod to the fact that when she found out she was an Academy Award nominee she was in drug rehab and didn’t want her nobody will find out; she planned to celebrate, “shout out later” once she was clean.
Matlin does not want to define herself as a deaf woman, but instead does a lot of charity work with organizations that help the deaf around the world. In 2007 she signed the National Anthem at the start of the Superbowl and in 2009 she was awarded her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Not many can say they’re the godmother of a cruise ship, but Matlin has that distinction too, along with all the other wonderful things she’s chosen to do with her life. She has a career, a family, and yes, a disability, but she has never let that stop her from achieving her dreams.