by curt schleier
correspondent
On the face of it, the question seems silly: “Does Marlee Matlin do telephone interviews?”
Matlin, of course, is an Academy Award-winning actress who is deaf. And common sense dictates that the logistics of a phone interview are far too awkward to make it work.
On the other hand, common sense also suggests that deaf women pick careers other than mainstream acting. Apparently, Matlin, 41, has no common sense; she hasn’t allowed the fact that she can’t hear to stop her from a successful career on screens large and small. She won her Oscar in her film debut as the deaf student in “Children of a Lesser God.” But since then she’s taken on all kinds of roles that have nothing to do with her being deaf.
She had her own TV series, “Reasonable Doubt,” in which she played a lawyer. She’s had recurring roles in other series, most recently “The West Wing,” in which she played a political analyst. Now she’s a regular on “The ‘L’ Word,” the spicy Showtime series about lesbians, in which she plays a sculptor.
So, no surprise, Marlee Matlin does phone interviews. And it’s not awkward at all. A reporter in New Jersey is connected to her sign-language translator, Jack Jason, in Los Angeles. He is connected via computer videocam to Matlin, who is somewhere else in Los Angeles.
Despite appearances, the arrangement is far from unwieldy and answers to questions come back from Matlin through Jack as quickly as they do in interviews without intermediaries.
Matlin plays Jodi Lerner, a new character to be introduced on the show 10 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28 on Showtime. Lerner is hired as artist-in-residence at fictitious California University by the new dean of the Arts College, Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals).
Lerner is a free spirit; Porter a control freak. The two clash, but only at first. Their mutual attraction overcomes any personality differences and, initially at least, they end up in some passionate embraces.
Matlin feels the character is Jewish, judging by the name alone, though she never discussed it with the series’ creator and guiding force, Ilene Chaiken, who is Jewish. “I’m sure as the show grows the character will grow and it [her Jewishness] will come into play.”
Matlin says she “did not feel uncomfortable” when she took the role. Asked about her husband’s feelings, she quickly makes it clear that the question is as silly as the one about doing phone interviews. “He’s over the moon,” she says. “He gets a glimpse of something he’ll never get at home.”
Matlin became deaf when she was a year and a half old, after she suffered a series of high-grade fevers. She doesn’t know why it happened. “I really don’t dwell on why. I’m deaf. It’s just part of who I am.”
She grew up in Chicago and attended the Jewish Temple for the Deaf, B’nai Shalom, in Skokie, Ill. “I was bat mizvahed and grew up in a typical Jewish family,” she says. “I have very fond memories growing up of going to services every Friday night after dinner, Sunday school and working one-on-one with my rabbi on my haftorah.”
The temple was run by a hearing rabbi whose goal was to bring the deaf and hearing Jewish communities together. Services were both spoken and signed. “It started out with deaf and their hearing family members going to temple together, but it attracted a great number of hearing people” as well.
In large measure, Matlin attributes her success to her Jewish roots. “I think it was our Jewish culture and community and sensibilities that allowed me to become independent.” Also chutzpah, “to do what you have to do in the face of adversity.
“My mom and dad told me I could do whatever I wanted to.”
The Fonz helped, too. For about nine years, between the ages of 7 and 16, Matlin participated in a theater for the deaf troupe. Henry Winkler just happened to be in Chicago and attended one of her performances. He came backstage, told her how great she was and encouraged her to continue her quest to become a professional actress.
As if to provide proof that no good deed goes unpunished, some at the theater criticized Winkler for raising unrealistic expectations for the deaf actress, setting her up for disappointment. Matlin says she and Winkler had a good laugh about that after she won the Oscar in 1986.
But it hasn’t been easy for her. “There were people who had doubts about my win, even some anger that I won the Oscar,” she recalls. “They said it was too easy for me. What was the big acting challenge? One critic even said I won the Oscar out of pity—and that was a well-known reviewer.”
Matlin signed her acceptance speech and perhaps in answer to that criticism changed things around the following year. “When I came back to give the Oscar to Michael Douglas, I decided to speak. Then I was criticized by deaf people. I decided I just do the best I can and take the rest with a grain of salt.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California