Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin will speak Wednesday, April 28, at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
The hearing-impaired Matlin, a leading advocate for the deaf community, will discuss, "Nobody's Perfect: Achieving Inclusion, Diversity and Access." The talk, part of the Presidential Forum on Diversity series, is free and open to the public.
In 1986, when she was 21, Matlin became the youngest winner of the Best Actress Oscar for her leading role in “Children of a Lesser God.” She is one of only four actresses to receive that honor for a film debut.
Matlin has starred in numerous feature films, including “Walker,” “The Player” and “Hear No Evil.” She also has appeared in many television series, including “The West Wing,” “Reasonable Doubts,” Showtime’s “The L Word” and “Dancing with the Stars.”
She recently launched a reality series on YouTube, “The Deaf Family,” which features a California family whose members are all deaf, except for the oldest son, Jared (the show’s narrator), and the youngest, Elijah. She hopes the show will eventually get picked up by the networks.
“Deaf and hard of hearing people make up one of the largest minority groups,” Matlin said in a recent Los Angeles Times interview through her interpreter, Jack Jason, “and yet there has never been a show, a reality documentary series that features what life is like for them.”
A year ago, Matlin, who lost most of her hearing when she was 18-months-old, released her autobiography, “I’ll Scream Later.” Her previous books include a novel, “Deaf Child Crossing,” and the young people's stories “Leading Ladies” and “Nobody's Perfect.”
Matlin lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Kevin Grandalski, and their four children.