Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' featured an episode called ''Loud as a Whisper'', about a deaf mediator named Riva. Riva was played by deaf actor Howie Seago, who had petitioned the producers of the show to make an episode about deaf people, mostly to dispel myths about them.

* Actor Mitch Longley was paralyzed in a car accident his senior year in high school. Despite this, he went on to be a very successful actor, with roles on several TV shows and [[Soap Opera|Soap Operas]], including one where he played a physician. He was written as "normally" as possible. Any difficulties in mobility were also incorporated into the show--a narrow-minded supervisor was reluctant to let him participate in a surgical rotation, and he was given a groundbreaking storyline in which his character embarked on a romance with another--it was made clear that his injuries had not affected his sexual abilities.

* Actress Amy Ecklund, who was deaf, was hired to play deaf Amish girl Abigail on [[Guiding Light]]. She was given typical soap opera storylines, though an [[Near Rape Experience|attempted rape]] was made all the more frightening by the fact that she could not hear her attacker creeping up on her. Towards the end of her tenure on the show, both the actress--and consequently her character--had a cochlear implant.

* Actress Amy Ecklund, who was deaf, was hired to play deaf Amish girl Abigail on [[Guiding Light]]. She was given typical soap opera storylines, though an [[Near-Rape Experience|attempted rape]] was made all the more frightening by the fact that she could not hear her attacker creeping up on her. Towards the end of her tenure on the show, both the actress--and consequently her character--had a cochlear implant.

* [[Glee]] has both played this trope straight with Becky and Jean (both actresses do have Down Syndrome) and (to much controversy) averted it with Artie.

* In ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'', Didi the one-legged woman that Earl slept with {{spoiler|(and stole a car and prosthesis from)}} is played by an actress that does, indeed, have only one real leg.

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* Actor/musician Jim Byrnes lost both his legs in a car accident. Most of his roles are of the "a guy who just happens to not have his legs" type.

* Robert David Hall, who plays the coroner on the original ''[[CSI]]''. He also lost his legs in a car accident. The only time in his entire career he was ever hired for a role ''because'' of his disability was when he played the amputee Mobile Infantry recruiter in ''[[Starship Troopers (Film)|Starship Troopers]]''.

* In a notable inversion of this trope, the late great supporting actor and [[Hey It's That Guy]] alumnus [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Dana_Elcar~~ Dana Elcar] played a lot of ''sighted'' characters late in his career, ''after'' he went completely blind due to glaucoma (though he often played blind characters as well - most notably on ''[[MacGyver]]'', when his condition was written into the show). He was just that good an actor.

* In a notable inversion of this trope, the late great supporting actor and [[Hey, It's That Guy!]] alumnus [[wikipedia:Dana Elcar|Dana Elcar]] played a lot of ''sighted'' characters late in his career, ''after'' he went completely blind due to glaucoma (though he often played blind characters as well - most notably on ''[[MacGyver]]'', when his condition was written into the show). He was just that good an actor.

* Another inversion: veteran British actor Eric Sykes went deaf in the early 1960s, and has been registered blind since the early 1990s. (His distinctive glasses have no lenses, and are a bone-conducting hearing aid.) This hasn't stopped him appearing in post-2000 films like ''The Others'' and ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'', and on the West End stage.

* Some of [[Michael J Fox]]'s later work skirts this territory.

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[[Category:Disability Tropes]]

[[Category:Disabled Character Disabled Actor]]

[[Category:Trope]]