I recently completed my re-watch of Columbo and was thinking about Peter Falk’s glass eye (in one episode he jokes about it!) That made me think of other actors & actresses that might be differently-abled (note that I am using “differently-abled” as a more modern synonym for “disabled” or “handicapped”).
Peter Falk and Sammy Davis Jr. each had a prosthetic eye. Sandy Duncan doesn’t have a prosthetic eye but is blind in one eye.
Lionel Barrymore was in a wheelchair from 1937 on.
Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1998 and was on Spin City from '96-'01.
Oscar winner Marlee Matlin is deaf.
RJ Mitte from Breaking Bad has cerebral palsy (although his character had more disability than Mitte does in real life).
I just saw Prince Amponsah, a burn victim and double amputee, in Station Eleven. And Samuel McKoy-Johnson in Wu Tang: An American Saga is wheelchair-bound due to brittle bone disease.
Who else?
Note I’m really looking for actors and actresses here, not presenters like Alex Brooker and Adam Hills. Also not other performers such as Ray Charles or Itzhak Perlman.
Daryl Mitchell continued acting after being paralyzed from the waist down. I remember when I saw him in a wheelchair in Inside Man I thought it was just a character trait.
Watching a lot of British cop shows has introduced me to Liz Carr, who uses a wheelchair due to anthrogryposis multiplex congenita, which is a congenital joint contraction.
I learned years ago that James Coburn had severe arthritis. Ever after I found myself staring at his hands. Bill Nighy has Dupuytren’s contracture, which also visibly effects his hands.
And of course Geri Jewell is famously one of the first people with cerebral palsy to be cast in a regular role on a series (The Facts of Life).
Gary Burghoff has a birth defect known as Poland syndrome, which led to brachydactyly – three fingers on his left hand are shorter than the fingers on his right hand. When he was on MASH, as Radar O’Reilly, Burghoff would usually disguise this fact by holding something (such as a clipboard) in his left hand, or thrusting that hand into a pocket.
Just a linguistic note - I think English (American English, anyway) is shifting away from distinguishing gender by using “actors” and “actresses.” Everyone is an actor now!
Martin Sheen’s left arm was damaged by a doctor’s forceps during birth, and he suffers from Erb’s palsy as a result. He has somewhat limited movement in that arm, which is several inches shorter than his right arm; the “Bartlet flip” (an unusual method for putting on a jacket), which he used frequently while on The West Wing, is due to him not being able to don a jacket in the usual way.
Alaqua Cox, who played Echo in the recent Disney+ series Hawkeye and is set to star in her own series as that character, is deaf and has a prosthetic leg. (The comic book character was deaf; they added the prosthetic leg to the character after the actor was cast).
James Doohan, Scotty of Star Trek, had a finger amputated on one hand due to a combat injury. Pretty much all of his roles included careful staging and framing to conceal that.
Alaqua Cox played Echo in Hawkeye. She is missing a foot (something new to the character, the comic book version doesn’t have this issue). She is deaf (so is her character in both the comics and the TV show).
