Marlee Matlin

Skeletor?

Is he still married to that Republican? Marlee Matlin? Strategist, yeah.

He's married to her? Yeah, they were huge back in the, what, 90s? He was Clinton's...

Mary Matlin.

And even now, I mean, there's been a lot more movies since then.

And I know I wrote a piece on Marlee Matlin with PBS American Masters and Children of a Lesser God and all of these great films that have come.

But it was Johnny Belinda that really set the standard for deaf people being portrayed in film.

And it was just, I think it was the message to people about it that here's this girl she became deaf as an infant so she was not born deaf she she took ill as a baby and then she was deaf her mother died giving birth to her she was raised by her father and her aunt and no one really took the time to connect with her And she was so ostracized by the community and even by her own family until this doctor, this outsider, comes into town.

She is so expressive with her eyes and you just, you feel as if you have gotten, and you do, you get an incredible characterization and she works on so many levels with this performance.

And, you know, I sent you just a couple of hours ago before we recorded this a, When Turner Classic Movies was doing their festival and series on disability and film, and they had several actors and filmmakers with disabilities come and discuss this.

And they had Marlee Matlin and Linda Bove, who was Linda on Sesame Street.

um yeah to um you know to just discuss and they they highlighted of course johnny belinda both of them being deaf performers or whatever and you you know both of them have mixed feelings about the movie definitely they both praise wyman's performance but i i think it's as as deaf women they also feel like the betrayal is limited just in terms of you know a deaf woman never letting out any kind of noise or not screaming when she's being raped or when someone is trying to take her child away or something like that.

And it's Children of a Lesser God.

With William Hurt and, of course, Marlee Matlin in her Oscar-winning performance that she did when she was 19 years old and remains to this day the youngest Best Actress winner of all time because she was 21 when she won.

And it's a movie that I saw soon after it came out.

I was 14 years old.

I thought his performance in this was so different and idiosyncratic and a little bit goofy and but also just grown up.

And obviously there's a lot of stories about the, you know, very kind of torrid affair that the two of them had.

And Marlee Matlin, I got to interview for my Oscar book and she spoke all about it.

But I think the movie is just so moving and lyrical.

... uh, before.

And they've had people in the past, uh, with disab- Marlee Matlin was on the show, and it's like-

Mm-hmm

... wait a second, you're dancing and you have to hear music, but you're deaf? So she was on the show.