With the famous TV show, The Facts of Life is the series that changed TV, when it was 1979. With the series, Geri Jewell became the first actress that appeared on a TV show, with a disability, cerebral palsy.
It is stated by Mental Floss that Geri was in contact with the showrunner Norman Lear before a year when the show had started.
“I got a standing ovation, and I ran into Norman in the elevator. He said, ‘You’ll be hearing from me really soon, kid.’ Three months later, he called me with the ‘Cousin Geri’ episode [in season two].” Geri Jewell said.
With her character, she became a voice for every disabled person that was wathcing the show.
She was born in 1956, in Buffalo, New York. As her mother was in a car crash while she was pregnant, Geri was born three months earlier than she was due to. That caused her to be born with cerebral palsy.
”It was very devastating. I knew a lot about cerebral palsy, so I knew what I was in for,” Mother of Jewell, Olga had stated.
Her siblings always stood by her, and acted her as their equal. Her parents had raised her to be an independent person so they had took her to physical therapy at early ages. She was raised in a way that she would be able to do everything herself. They had taped a spoon to her hand so that she would learn to hold it, and for stop her shaking, they had taped her with sandbags.
”They thought if I didn’t learn to fight when I was young I wouldn’t when I was older,” Jewell said in 1984.
”Your mind knows what your body is supposed to be doing, but the brain’s message aren’t getting through…. By learning the way your muscles would work if half your brains weren’t on vacation, we can minimize the visible aspects of our disability”. she had stated in her autobiography.
Through stand up comedies she had gained success and fame. And she was discovered while she was performing a stand up comedy that led her to The Facts of Life.
”I was broke. My manager got arrested for embezzlement and securities fraud. My life was in shambles, and I had to go on every major talk show, promoting a book that had little to do with what my life was really about. It was perpetuating the myth that I had succeeded, overcome cerebral palsy and blah blah blah. It was a hypocrisy to the truth of my life as I lived it,” she said about being fired from the show.
After The Facts of Life, she had found herself in big series like 21 Jump Street and The Young and the Restless.
”What’s different today is that I’m centered, not emotionally all over the place, and that allows me to relax more. But in the’80s, when I was struggling with my sexuality, had a crooked manager who stole all my money, a show that didn’t renew my contract and a book out that I hated, I couldn’t handle it. It amazes me that I even lived through those years. I’m lucky I’m still alive,” Jewell had stated, who is now has a career as a motivational speaker, and a representative for people with disabilities.
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