Marlee Matlin
Marlee Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an American actress, author, and activist. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Marlee Matlin
August 24, 1965
- Actress
- author
- activist
1986–present
4
Deaf since she was 18 months old,[1] Matlin made her acting debut playing Sarah Norman in the romantic drama film Children of a Lesser God (1986), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is the first deaf performer to win an Academy Award, as well as the youngest winner in the Best Actress category.[2][3][4][5] Matlin starred in the police drama series Reasonable Doubts (1991–1993), which earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations, and her guest roles in Seinfeld (1993), Picket Fences (1993), The Practice (2000), and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2004–05) earned her four Primetime Emmy Award nominations. For her role in CODA (2021), she won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Matlin is a prominent member of the National Association of the Deaf, and her interpreter is Jack Jason.[6][7] In 2009, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life[edit]
Matlin was born in Morton Grove, Illinois, to Libby (née Hammer; 1930–2020)[8] and Donald Matlin (1930–2013), who was an automobile dealer.[9] Matlin lost all hearing in her right ear and 80% of the hearing in her left ear at the age of 18 months due to illness and fevers. In her autobiography I'll Scream Later, she suggests that her hearing loss may have been due to a genetically malformed cochlea.[10] She is the only member of her family who is deaf. She has a sense of humor about her deafness: "Often I'm talking to people through my speakerphone, and after 10 minutes or so they say, 'Wait a minute, Marlee, how can you hear me?' They forget I have an interpreter there who is signing to me as they talk. So I say, 'You know what? I can hear on Wednesdays.'"[11][12]
Matlin and her two older brothers, Eric and Marc, grew up in a Reform Jewish household. Her family roots are in Poland and Russia.[13][14] Matlin attended a synagogue for the Deaf (Congregation Bene Shalom), and after studying Hebrew phonetically, was able to learn her Torah portion for her Bat Mitzvah. She was later interviewed for the book Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories.[15] She graduated from John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights and attended Harper College in Palatine, Illinois.[16] She had planned a career in criminal justice.[17] In her autobiography, Matlin described two instances in which she was molested: by a babysitter at age 11, and by a teacher in high school.[18]
Personal life[edit]
Matlin married Burbank police officer Kevin Grandalski on August 29, 1993, at the home of actor Henry Winkler.[52] The couple first met while she was filming a scene from Reasonable Doubts outside the studio grounds; the police department had assigned Grandalski to provide security and control traffic.[53] They have four children: Sarah (born 1996), Brandon (born 2000), Tyler (born 2002), and Isabelle (born 2003).[54]
In 2002, Matlin published her first novel, titled Deaf Child Crossing, which was loosely based on her own childhood. She later wrote and published a sequel titled Nobody's Perfect, produced on stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in partnership with VSA Arts in October 2007.
On April 14, 2009, Matlin's autobiography, I'll Scream Later, was published. In it, she describes her drug abuse and how it drove her to check herself into the Betty Ford Center. She also tells about her rocky, two-year relationship with her significantly older Children of a Lesser God co-star William Hurt, whom she says physically abused and raped her.[55] She also addresses the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her female babysitter.[56]