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Dana Plato Bio
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Dana Plato Dana Plato, former co-star of ABC’s comedy sitcom Different Strokes, led a troubled life from an early age. Lumped together with other former child stars such as Danny Bonaduce, Corey Feldman, and Different Strokes co-star Todd Bridges, Plato suffered from drug and alcohol addiction, legal trouble, and suicide attempts in the years following her successful role as Kimberly Drummond.
Dana Plato was born to a young, unwed mother named Linda Strain, in Maywood, California. Unable to care for her daughter, Strain placed Plato for adoption. Her date of birth is listed as November 1, 1963, though many sources believe it to be November 7, 1964. In June of 1965, Dean and Kay Plato of San Fernando Valley in California adopted Plato. Though she was quite skilled in figure skating, her adoptive mother had begun pursuing an acting career for Dana at an early age and from the time she was seven, Plato began doing television commercials.
With somewhere in the vicinity of 100 commercials under her belt, Plato appeared twice on the 1970s television series The Bionic Women, starring Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner. She reportedly turned down the role of Regan in the 1973 film The Exorcist, but was cast in the sequel The Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977. In 1978, Plato landed her huge break and was cast on the series Different Stokes, alongside Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman. The series lasted until 1986, though Plato was written off the show in 1984 due to her pregnancy with son, Tyler, by her then-husband Lanny Lambert, who won custody of their child after their divorce in 1990.
Though she made guest appearances on several television series such as Growing Pains, The Love Boat, and ChiPs during the 1980s, and appeared in a few low-budget, made for television movies, Plato’s acting career plummeted after Different Strokes. She took roles in grade B films and filled roles deemed soft pornography, even taking one of the first celebrity spots in a video game with Sega’s Night Trap, but her career was being criticized and she was struggling with drugs, alcohol, depression, and the law.
Having struggled with drug use since her teens, in 1991 Plato was arrested for robbing a video store of $200 using a pellet gun. Plato was arrested a second time in 1992 for forging a prescription for painkillers.
At the end of her career, Plato was engaged to Robert Menchaca and living in a RV. She and her fiancé were attempting to revive her career. On May 7, 1999, Plato appeared on The Howard Stern Show where she held discussions about her troubled past and was claiming to be drug free and working at revitalizing her career.
The following day, Plato was found dead in her RV outside her future mother-in-law’s home having ingested an overdose of painkillers; her death was ruled a suicide by coroner’s inquest. Her final role was as the prosecuting attorney in Pacino Is Missing, in which Todd Bridges also had a role. Bridges, who had known Plato most of his life, remains adamant that Plato did not mean to kill herself. YUDDY |
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Dana Plato - Appeared in 'The Bionic Woman' starring Lindsay Wagner .
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Dana Plato - Starred in 'Different Strokes' alongside Gary Coleman .
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Dana Plato - Appeared on 'The Howard Stern Show.' |
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