Marlee Matlin: "I'd love to do the story of Octomom!" The Babble Interview. »

Posted By efrost1 7 months, 3 weeks ago in Family

Prop it 6 1 drop Drop it

Your kids know Marlee Matlin as the deaf lady from Blues Clues. But if you've been paying attention, you know her as an actress skilled at taking the world by surprise. As a twenty-one-year-old in 1986, she won an Oscar for starring in Children of a Lesser God, her first major role, opposite William Hurt (she's still the record-holder for youngest winner in the Best Actress category). Later, she traversed the prime-time landscape with parts in everything from Seinfeld to Desperate Housewives to The L Word. Just last year, the mother of four wowed reality-TV viewers with a sassy and effortless-looking cha-cha-cha on Dancing With the Stars . And now she's written a tell-all: I'll Scream Later, out this month, lays down the facts about her onetime drug and alcohol addictions as well as her abusive relationship with Hurt.

As expert as Matlin has become at keeping fans guessing, though, she's never unpredictable when it comes to discussing her disability. Deafness, she's quick to point out, does not define her. In a recent email exchange with Babble, she outlined how it seeps into her life as an actress and as a mom — for instance, sign language comes in pretty handy when you're out on the town with a five-year-old who doesn't want the rest of the world to hear what you're saying. — Tammy La Gorce