Actors With Disabilities (PWD)

1. Howie Mandel

The story goes that huggable, highly affable stand-up comedian Howie Mandel began his show biz career by chance while catching amateur night at the Comedy Store on the L.A. Sunset Strip during a vacation. Goaded on by friends to try out, a producer spotted him, hired him for an appearance on a ...

2. Montel Williams

Producer | The Montel Williams Show

Montel Williams was born on July 3, 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for The Montel Williams Show (1991), JAG (1995) and Matt Waters (1996). He has been married to Tara Fowler since October 6, 2007. He was previously married to Grace Morley and Rochele See.

3. Robert David Hall

Actor | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Robert David Hall was born on November 9, 1947 in East Orange, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor, known for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Starship Troopers (1997) and The Negotiator (1998). He has been married to Judy Stearns since 1999. He was previously married to Connie Cole and Susan ...

4. Danny Woodburn

Actor | Seinfeld

Danny Woodburn is an entertainer on stage, film, television, and the comedy club circuit.

Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, he is the son of a nurse and a professional golfer. He is a graduate of Philadelphia's Temple University's School of Film and Theater and recipient of their Outstanding...

5. Sarah Bernhardt

Actress | La dame aux camélias

This celebrated star of the French stage had a sporadic love-hate affair with early cinema. After her film debut in Le duel d'Hamlet (1900) she declared she detested the medium; yet she consented to appear in another film, La Tosca (1909). Upon seeing the results, she reportedly recoiled in horror,...

6. Dirk Benedict

Actor | The A-Team

Dirk Benedict was born in Montana on March 1st, 1945. He was raised in the country, far away from anything connected with movies or acting. He gathered his first experiences in acting (on a dare) in a college production of "Showboat" where he got the main part. His father, a lawyer, died when Dirk ...

7. Richard Burton

Actor | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.

Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in ...

8. Tom Cruise

Actor | Top Gun

In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. ...

9. Dana Elcar

Actor | The Sting

Dana Elcar was born on October 10, 1927 in Ferndale, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Sting (1973), MacGyver (1985) and 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). He was married to Marianne Torrance, Mary Margaret "Peggy" Romano and Kathryn Frances Mead. He died on June 6, ...

10. Lou Ferrigno

Actor | The Incredible Hulk

An internationally famous and well respected bodybuilder / actor, Lou Ferrigno first appeared on TV screens in 1977 as the musclebound title character of The Incredible Hulk (1977), the alter ego of meek scientist David Banner. Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951 and as a child ...

11. Danny Glover

Actor | Lethal Weapon

Actor, producer and humanitarian Danny Glover has been a commanding presence on screen, stage and television for more than 35 years.

Glover was born in San Francisco, California, to Carrie (Hunley) and James Glover, postal workers who were also active in civil rights. Glover trained at the Black ...

12. Dorian Gregory

Actor | Charmed

Dorian Gregory was born on January 26, 1971 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Charmed (1998), The Lurking Man (2017) and Baywatch Nights (1995).

13. Mary Tyler Moore

Actress | Ordinary People

Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in...

14. Christopher Reeve

Actor | Superman

Christopher D'Olier Reeve was born September 25, 1952, in New York City, to journalist Barbara Johnson (née Barbara Pitney Lamb) and writer/professor F.D. Reeve (Franklin D'Olier Reeve). He came from an upper-class family; his paternal grandfather was CEO of Prudential Financial, and one of his ...

15. Sylvester Stallone

Actor | Rocky

Sylvester Stallone is an athletically built, dark-haired American actor/screenwriter/director/producer, the movie fans worldwide have been flocking to see Stallone's films for over 40 years, making "Sly" one of Hollywood's biggest-ever box office draws.

Sylvester Stallone was born on July 6, 1946, ...

16. John Thaw

Actor | Inspector Morse

He was the working class boy from Manchester whose intensity and natural honesty made him British television's most bankable actor. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His first starring role on TV was as Sgt John Mann in Redcap (1964). His first great success, though, was as Detective...

17. Kim Tserkezie

Actress | Balamory

Kim Tserkezie is an actor, writer, presenter and producer, with a career spanning comedy, drama and documentary. In 2019/21, she was named as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK (Shaw Trust Power 100). Kim played Penny Pocket in BAFTA award winning children's series, Balamory ...

18. Walt Disney

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney, a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of ...

19. Lucy Roucis

Actress | Love & Other Drugs

Lucy Roucis was an example of "turning something adverse around and making it work." Her early-onset Parkinson's disease actually helped get her a part in Love & Other Drugs (2010). Director and screenwriter Edward Zwick, after reading over 40 actors for the role, was so impressed with her ...

20. Nic Novicki

Producer | T11 Incomplete

Nic Novicki is an Actor/Comedian/Writer, who has been performing since age 8. His television work includes The Sopranos (1999) (HBO), where he played the role of a nightclub manager. Other television roles include Saturday Night Live (1975) in a recurring role as Alfie; as the lead in the Cingular ...

21. Michael J. Fox

Actor | Back to the Future

Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, ...

22. Teal Sherer

Actress | Survivor's Remorse

Teal Sherer is known for Survivor's Remorse (2014), The Guild (2007) and NCIS: New Orleans (2014).

23. Quentin Tarantino

Writer | Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.

In January of...

24. Geri Jewell

Actress | Deadwood

Geri Jewell was born on September 13, 1956 in Buffalo, New York, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Deadwood (2004), 21 Jump Street (1987) and The Facts of Life (1979). She was previously married to Richard Pimentel.

25. Chris Jay Fonseca

Director | James

Chris Jay Fonseca is known for James (1999), The Night That Never Happened (1997) and Women: Stories of Passion (1996).

26. Stephen Hawking

Actor | Star Trek: The Next Generation

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 on Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.

His scientific works include a collaboration with ...

27. Nic Nassuet

Producer | Chrysalis

Nic began his career in the performing arts at the age of two in Oklahoma and continued to work in television and on stage until he enlisted in the United States Army. After a brief term of enlistment, during which he continued to perform at venues in California and Arizona, he returned to civilian...

28. Andrea Bocelli

Soundtrack | The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Andrea Bocelli, as born in Lajatico, Italy, in 1958, is one of the greatest singing talents in the world today. He has been blind since age 12, owing to congenital glaucoma and a blow to the head while tending goal during a soccer game. Andrea did not begin his singing career until the late 1980s, ...

29. Steve Gladstone

Actor | The Specialist

Steve Gladstone is known for The Specialist (1994), Hot Stuff (1979) and The Island (1980).

30. RJ Mitte

Actor | Breaking Bad

In 2006 R.J. Mitte moved to Hollywood, California, with his family to support the foray of his sister, actress Lacianne Carriere, into print and commercial work. For fun, Mitte began training with Los Angeles talent manager Addison K. Witt in Sherman Oaks, Cal. And though many of the actors in the ...

31. Richard Pryor

Actor | Superman III

Highly influential, and always controversial, African-American actor/comedian who was equally well known for his colorful language during his live comedy shows, as for his fast paced life, multiple marriages and battles with drug addiction. He has been acknowledged by many modern comic artist's as ...

32. William Hartnell

Actor | Murder in Reverse?

William Hartnell was born on 8 January 1908, just south of St. Pancras railway station in London. In press materials in the 1940s he claimed that his father was a farmer and later a stockbroker; it turns out that he had actually been born out of wedlock, as his biography "Who's There?" states.

At ...

33. Margaret Leighton

Actress | The Go-Between

Tall, reedy, thin-browed, light-haired British award-winning theatre actress Margaret Leighton was born in Worchestershire, England, on February 26, 1922, the daughter of a businessman. Expressing an early desire to act, she quit school at age 15 and auditioned and joined Sir Barry Jackson's ...

34. Jonathan Katz

Actor | Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

Jonathan Katz was born on December 1, 1946 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (1995), State and Main (2000) and Raising Dad (2001).

35. David L. Lander

Actor | Laverne & Shirley

David L. Lander was born on June 22, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Laverne & Shirley (1976), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Used Cars (1980). He was married to Kathy Fields and Thea (Pool) Markus. He died on December 4, 2020 in Los Angeles, ...

36. Annette Funicello

Actress | Muscle Beach Party

Annette Joanne Funicello achieved teenage popularity starting in October 1955 after she debuted as a Mouseketeer. Born on October 22, 1942 in Utica, New York, the family had moved to California when she was still young. Walt Disney himself saw her performing the lead role in "Swan Lake" at her ...

37. Marc Summers

Stunts | The Florida Project

Born in Indianapolis, he paid his dues as a magician, disc jockey, comedian and studio page in Los Angeles during the 1970s. When Jack Barry's announcer fell sick on The Joker's Wild (1972), 1973, Marc (then a 22-year-old page) filled in. That was his break. He began warming up audiences for ...

38. Billy Bob Thornton

Actor | Sling Blade

Billy Bob Thornton was born on August 4, 1955 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Virginia Roberta (Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond (Billy Ray) Thornton, an educator, high school history teacher, and basketball coach (now deceased). He is the older brother of James Donald (Jimmy Don) (born in ...

39. Jessica Alba

Actress | Fantastic Four

Jessica Marie Alba was born on April 28, 1981, in Pomona, CA, to Catherine (Jensen) and Mark David Alba, who served in the US Air Force. Her father is of Mexican descent (including Spanish and Indigenous Mexican roots), and her mother has Danish, Welsh, English, and French ancestry. Her family ...

40. Donald Trump

Producer | The Apprentice

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946 at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York City, New York. He is the son of Mary Trump (née Macleod) and Fred Trump, a real estate millionaire. His mother was a Scottish immigrant who initially worked as a maid. His father was born in New ...

41. Cameron Diaz

Actress | Vanilla Sky

Cameron Diaz, an American actress, was born in 1972 in San Diego, the daughter of a Cuban-American father and a German mother. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid," Cameron left home at 16 and for the next 5 years lived in such varied locales as Japan, Australia, Mexico, ...

42. Leonardo DiCaprio

Actor | Inception

Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s,...

43. Linda Bove

Actress | Follow That Bird

Born deaf, she was a founding member of the National Theater of the Deaf in 1963. In 1974, she received the AMITA--the Italian-American Award for her work on television. Best known for playing Linda on Sesame Street (1969) for over 20 years--the longest-running role on American television for a ...

44. Foxy Brown

Soundtrack | Cradle 2 the Grave

Foxy Brown, a Brooklyn native, never thought she would be in the rap industry, much less in films. Even though she received a lot of skepticism from critics because of her raunchy lyrics and sexual appeal in music videos, Foxy still managed to stay on top. With a platinum album under her belt, and ...

45. Nicole Lynn Evans

Actress | Monster

Nicole was born in Santa Monica, CA. She has won 3 Best Supporting Actress awards for her performance in "Broken Dreams" directed by David Crabtree. Born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a rare bone condition, Nicole stands strong at 3 feet 8 inches tall. In addition to her work as an actress for the ...

46. Danny Murphy

Actor | Kingpin

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Danny was injured in a diving accident in Oaks Bluff, Martha's Vineyard on August 8, 1974 leaving him a quadriplegic at age 19. He graduated from Stonehill College in 1979 majoring in Criminal Justice and then enjoyed a successful corporate career in Boston ...

47. Jenna Bainbridge

Actress | Found

Jenna Bainbridge is a NYC based actor and disability rights advocate. She is best known for her work in Regional and Off-Broadway theatre. She is also the Co-Founder of ConsultAbility, a consulting company that works with theatre companies to make their spaces more accessible for disabled artists, ...