Melanie Watson on Diff’rent Strokes:
Melanie Watson, a former child star and disability champion who starred on Diff’rent Strokes, is no longer with us. When filming the long-running NBC sitcom, she once candidly discussed the accessibility issues she encountered on set.
The former child actor, who died on Friday, December 26 at the age of 57, was a wheelchair user and had osteogenesis imperfecta from birth. This genetic illness, also called brittle bone syndrome, is a connective tissue disorder that causes fragility in the bones, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Melanie Watson discussed her four episodes of the Norman Lear-produced television series in a 2020 interview with IndieWire. She said that although she respected Lear’s ambition to use television to portray stories about disabilities, there were many obstacles to overcome as a disabled child actor in the 1980s.
Melanie Watson first secured a minor role on the short-lived sitcom The Baxters after being found at the age of 13 by a talent scout at a California YMCA who was searching for swimmers with disabilities. Soon after, she was cast in Diff’rent Strokes as Cathy Gordon, Arnold Jackson’s (played by Gary Coleman) wheelchair-using best friend.
At the time, I didn’t have a wheelchair,” Melanie Watson told Indie Wire. I was therefore carried everywhere. She claimed to have used a manual wheelchair while working on set, which frequently became entangled in cables that were laying on the ground.
She did, however, agree that everyone on the crew was helpful and kind. Melanie Watson had four appearances on Different Strokes. The iconic sitcom, which ran for eight seasons from 1978 to 1986, starred Todd Bridges and the late Gary Coleman.
Her character debuted in the third season of the show, and she gave standout performances in the episodes Cathy (1982) and Cathy’s Olympics (1984). Watson added that she found some of the content difficult. In one episode, Watson was quite uncomfortable when her character Cathy was expected to use crutches to demonstrate her ability to walk and motivate Arthur to deliver a significant speech.
She told Indie Wire that she had experienced a severe fall a few years before to filming, which made her fearful of walking, and that she knew she didn’t want to do it. ” I remember telling her, “This is someone else’s dream. “However, they clarified that this was the episode’s plot. Watson’s mother urged her to do the scene, which she did, but she soon lost interest in acting.
Norman Lear developed and produced a number of television shows featuring characters with impairments during his career. Watson commended him for providing her with the chance to work in front of the camera despite her conflicting experiences. She told Indiewire, I’m proud of Norman for doing something different. I didn’t realize it at the time, but being the first was a huge gift. I would still be in this industry if I had to start over.
Watson died in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to TMZ. Robert Watson, her brother, informed the outlet that she had been admitted to the hospital and that her health had gotten worse.