Marlee Matlin

Marlee Beth Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an American actress, author, and activist who became profoundly deaf at 18 months old following an illness. She rose to prominence with her debut performance in the 1986 film Children of a Lesser God, earning the Academy Award for Best Actress and becoming the first deaf performer to win an acting Oscar, as well as the youngest woman to receive the award in that category at age 21. Matlin has since appeared in notable television roles, including on The West Wing, and has been a vocal advocate for deaf accessibility in media, notably contributing to the expansion of closed captioning on television.

Marlee Beth Matlin was born on August 24, 1965, in Morton Grove, Illinois, to Donald Matlin, an automobile dealer, and Libby Matlin (née Hammer). As the youngest of three children and the family's only daughter, she grew up alongside two older brothers, Eric and Marc, in an upper-middle-class Jewish household in this Chicago suburb.

In her early years, Matlin attended an oral school near Chicago, where emphasis was placed on developing speech skills without reliance on sign language. At age five, she began learning American Sign Language, integrating it with lip-reading and spoken English in a bilingual approach facilitated by her family. She also participated in a synagogue for the deaf, where she phonetically studied Hebrew to prepare for her bat mitzvah, demonstrating early accommodations for religious and cultural education.