Marlee Matlin

Marlee Matlin, the first Deaf performer to win an Academy Award, for Children of a Lesser God in 1987, testified before Congress in support of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990, which required new American televisions to display closed captions. That law changed daily life for millions of Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Decades later she pushed for Deaf actors to play the Deaf family in CODA.