Deaf Times: Marlee Matlin Dances to Her Own Beat

Here is another article online from Deaf Times below.  Marlee discussed the dancing show.  She's enjoying it.  It's fun. 

From the newsroom of the ABC News, Monday, March 24, 2008 .....

Deaf Actress Proves You Don't Need Hearing to Listen to the Rhythm

Actress Marlee Matlin wowed the crowd last Tuesday when she trotted to the beat on "Dancing with the Stars" despite her hearing disability. (ABC)

While Marlee Matlin cha cha cha-ed her way into fans' hearts as the sentimental favorite on last week's "Dancing With the Stars" season premiere, many wondered how the deaf actress was able to maintain the beat and stay in perfect step with her partner Fabian Sanchez.

"Fabian is my music. Fabian, as the man, takes the lead," Matlin said. "He also is my music where I just go with him. I look at him and follow him, as if he's my music, as if he would hear it and try to do it right. It's as simple as that."
Rumors suggest Matlin and Sanchez use secret cues to communicate on the dance floor.
"I'm touching her, and I [communicate the rhythm to] her through my movement. There are no signals here," Sanchez said.
Making sure Matlin has all the right moves isn't a simple task for the 42-year-old mother of four who describes herself as profoundly deaf.
"Without hearing aids, I'm stone deaf. I hear absolutely nothing," she said.

Still, she enjoyed performing for the millions of viewers.
"It was a great feeling. It was fun and it was a total natural high," Matlin said.
Even if Matlin doesn't take home the glittering mirror ball trophy at season's end, she already has proved her hearing disability doesn't limit her aspirations.
Matlin lost her hearing at 18-months-old after a bout with the virus roseola, and has never let her silent world limit her. As a result, she netted a best actress Oscar at age 21 for 1987's "Children of a Lesser God. "

Inspiring the Next Generation

The fact that the actress, who is currently a regular on Showtime's "The L Word," has been able to accomplish so much came as no surprise to second-graders in Gallaudet University's elementary and secondary programs in Washington, D.C.
There, Matlin has served as an inspiration for hard of hearing students searching for the beat.
"I was really surprised. 'Wow — a deaf person is dancing.' So, now I want to dance also," said Zachary Jones, a dance student at Gallaudet's Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) performing arts program.
The program, which caters to the deaf and hard of hearing, teaches students to rely on eye contact and teamwork, while internalizing the beat, to develop dance skills, rather than focusing on the music.
"I would say that deaf people have to work a little bit harder in terms to make sure they are relying completely on the count and the rhythm," said Yola Rozynek, of MSSD.
They often come up with the moves first and pick the music later. "I can hear some of the beats. We maintain eye contact and use our eyes. We keep a rhythm," said MSSD dance student Jene Kelly.

"We use counting and memorize all the dance moves. We use the counting to keep us on track and we also practice very often," said MSSD dance student Ormar Rodriguez.
As the students continue to perfect their moves, so will Matlin.
"All I can say is I'm having fun. I hope the audience is really gonna enjoy our performance as well as everybody else's on the show," Matlin said.

Deaf Times: Deaf Actress on “Dancing With the Stars” Show By Leonard Hall

This weekly column writer for deaf community, Leonard Hall, discussed Marlee Matlin at "Dancing With The Stars" and many deaf outstanding dancers in the deaf world.  Here is an article online from Deaf Times below:

From the newsroom of the Olathe News, Olathe, Kansas, Saturday, March 22, 2008 .....

By Leonard Hall

Deaf actress Marlee Matlin had never danced professionally before and joined one of the 12 woman dancers with male partners on the ABC reality television show “Dancing With the Stars” that debuted last Monday night.

Marlee Matlin and her male dancing partner/teacher Fabian Sanchez did very well last Monday show dancing the “cha-cha” and getting 21 points. The couple finished third among the 12 dancing couples.

It is no surprise that Matlin can dance well as she is in good physical shape. It took two weeks of cha-chaing and quickstepping practice for seven hours a day for Matlin to prepare for last Monday “Dancing With the Stars” debut.

In the deaf world, there are many outstanding deaf dancers.

At the international deaf festival held at Gallaudet University several years ago, there were several outstanding dancing troupes from throughout the world, including China, which provided outstanding dance performances.

Matlin proved to be more rhythmically inclined than at least half of her competitors.

She faced tough competition, even so none of the other women dancers have danced professionally before.

On Monday, the top woman dancer was Kristi Yamaguchi, who is the Olympic gold medalist in women figure skating. She made it look easy being on and off the ice.

Also dancing are actresses Shannon Elizabeth and Priscilla Presley, tennis champ Monica Seles, actress Marissa Jaret Winokur and other well-known celebrities.

No couple was eliminated from last week show, but two will be eliminated Monday, March 24^th.

Matlin is a 42-year old Emmy-nominated television actress who won a best actress Oscar in 1986 for “Children of A Lesser God.” She has starred in a number of TV series and movies.

This is the sixth season of “Dancing With the Stars”. ABC sought to provide a diversity among the dancers, a contributing factor to the success of the show. Dancers had been boxers, basketball players, football players, baseball players, models, and actors.

In season four, model Heather Mills, who wears a prosthetic leg, lasted seven weeks on the show.

It is good to see diversity on this reality television show. Matlin will do well in the dancing competition.

Dancing With The Stars Season 6 Day 3 - Marlee & Fabian

Bravo, Marlee and Fabian! Mambo! Mambo! I watched it last Monday night. Yesterday, I just learned Marlee and Fabian are saved for the next week. I noticed Fabian signing to her, "You are saved," when their result was announced. He's learning ASL but I figured Fabian studied it for a short time. Wonderful news for them! Yay! Yay! Here is video of Marlee and Fabian below that was taken a place on a Live TV last Monday night March 24th:

Jesus of Nazareth (TV miniseries 1977)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Other

The kind of genre is a history and a biography.

I was about watching my brother's movie tapes, "Jesus of Nazareth", a TV miniseries at the home of my parents house some years ago but I've discovered the closed-caption (CC) did not showing up at the bottom of TV screen. I've had inspected the logo of "CC" on the back of a package of 2 movie tapes before I inserted one of them into the VCR. I was in a disappointment and took it out right away. So I borrowed this TV miniseries movie from the city island library 2 weeks ago on Monday. Thank God, I understood the dialogue between actors all the way to the end since the CC showed up at the beginning. This TV miniseries movie was aired on at around the time of Easter in 1977. The miniseries received two Emmy nominations, neither of which it won. I don't remember this TV movie cuz I was little girl at that time. I found out about this when I got older.

This is a Biblical story about the life of Jesus. Jesus was played by Robert Powell. I have never heard of this actor before. He did a terrific job. This film is beautiful and very good. It was directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It made u learning who Jesus is. Jesus changed people's life. Here is a video, "A Tribute to the Cast of 'Jesus of Nazareth' " below:

Picture Perfect Friday: Gobsmacked!

This is Roy and Glenda.  They are from my deaf club.

LOL!  LOL!  I do remember what happened to this picture.  I swear I have never heard of this word when Suey posted a photo on the subject of gobsmacked.  Interesting...  I tried to figure what it means but I researched on that word.  I don't think deaf people don't understand this word, "gobsmacked".  I do remember what happened at a Christmas Party in 2004 when I figured out what gobsmacked means.  Yeah, I know this guy.  LOL!  This photo was taken at St. John's County Association of the Deaf Christmas Party 2004 in St. Augustine, about 50 miles north of Daytona Beach.  That place is next to my old deaf school, Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.  Anyways, Glenda, Roy's wife, asked me to take a picture of him when he comes out of ladies' room before I took it.  LOL!  He went into the ladies' room cuz the other man used men's room at the same time.  When Roy came out of ladies' room, I gobsmacked him by taking a picture of him with his wife, Glenda, who was laughed.  LOL!
I had used a regular camera at that time.

Dancing With The Stars Season 6 Day 2 - Marlee & Fabian

Did u watch "Dancing With The Stars" Day 2 last Tues night? I did. Marlee Matlin did a wonderful job on the dance show. I enjoyed watching what she's doing with Fabian. I am proud of her. I know Marlee can't hear the music but she beats it out successfully! Congratulations on Marlee and Fabian! Marlee looks so absolutely beautiful! The reason Marlee took her dancing job is that her own 4 kids wanted to see their famous mother dancing.

My Health.

I wasn't feeling well last Friday night.  I thought my recovery is on the way but I was wrong.  That Friday night, I felt uncomfortable.  I lost my appetite again.  But no pains.  My stomach stirred up by taking too much pills.  I figured out.  I can't stand them anymore.  So I've decided stopping take pills from health food store last Saturday morning.  I am tired of taking them everyday.  I am sick of them.  I kept running to the bathroom 3 times in the middle of night.  I was exhausted.  I was supposed going to the beach that Saturday and would have a lunch there cuz the weather turned out warmer as I was finding out about a day before but I cancelled it.  I felt trapping inside my apt.  I haven't been going out much due to an illness.  I feel my illness is taken me away from my social life and traveling the world.  My God!  I don't want to give them up forever.  Also, my hubby made me sick if he's still not communicating with me much.  If he's still not, he's going to be in a big trouble.

I had a disagreement with my mother about my health.  She doesn't understand.  I told her I want to see a doctor right away but she said doctor couldn't find anything inside.  When Mom came over to see me for a visit that late Sat afternoon, she informed me her mother had problems with acid reflex and the salad made her sick.  I have no idea.  Is this some kind of gene pool?  I don't know.  But my grandmother passed away in Spring of 1995, 2 weeks after Easter.  God Bless her.  So I've decided I am stopped eating salad for awhile.  I love it very much.

Deaf Times: Deaf dancer will be watching Marlee Matlin on "Dancing With the Stars"

From the newsroom of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 .....

Heather Wagley practices with dance partner Larry Nemeth at the American Dance Exchange. When they compete, the judges are unaware that she is deaf.

When I found out about Marlee Maltin's dancing job on TV a month ago, I was excited and happy to learn about her situation there. Yay! I am planned to watch "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday night, ABC. Remember Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995? She was the first deaf ballerina to win Miss America but the kind of her dance is different. I will never forget the night she won. Regis Philbin was witnessed there. His reaction about Heather Whitestone is that he can't believe it as his head shaked. Heather is so amazing! Anyways, I am going to find out how Marlee is doing. Otherwise, here is an article online about a deaf dancer and her dance partner below. I picked this out last Wednesday night cuz I thought u might be interesting to learn about what deaf dancer can do that u don't know.

Heather Wagley was putting her best foot forward on a recent afternoon, but her instructor Larry Nemeth wanted a better best foot forward, and then another.
So Nemeth, who teaches at the American Dance Exchange in Highland Heights, led Wagley to repeat a sequence of steps here, a sequence there, allowing the music to pace them through a medley of dances, from West Coast jitterbug to fox trot to tango to cha-cha -- as other students and instructors danced around them.
Wagley, a tall, blond woman of 32, has won first place in more than 50 ballroom dancing contests, with Nemeth as her partner the last eight years or so. When the San Francisco Open DanceSport competition begins March 28, they'll be there in their dancing shoes.
The judges won't know she's deaf. They never do.











ABC Actress Marlee Matlin practices with her partner in preparation for Monday's sixth season-premiere of "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC.
Of course, when ABC's popular reality show "Dancing With the Stars" begins its sixth season at 8 p.m. Monday, the judges will know contestant Marlee Matlin is deaf.
And so will everyone who watches the Oscar-winning actress and wonders, "How can she dance to music she can't hear?"
Wagley, a dance student for 18 years, was pleasantly surprised that Matlin was chosen for the TV competition -- and of course, she'll be watching, as usual. Communicating through sign language to instructor Tony Nunez, she predicted Matlin has her work cut out for her, though.
Matlin is hoping her appearance will shatter once and for all the misconception that deaf people can't dance. "Deaf people can do anything except hear," she said in USA Today, quoting I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, a school in Washington, D.C., for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The actress will learn the dances through sight, feel and repetition, just like Wagley, said P.J. Novarro, co-owner of the dance studio. He said the film star will have to practice at least 40 hours to learn a dance, and that's more or less true for the other participants, too.
"Everyone is born with rhythm," he said. "She may not hear the downbeat, but it's transferred to her by her teacher."
While the bass notes can be felt through wooden flooring, they are not transmitted effectively through other materials, like concrete, or wood on concrete. That's why a deaf dancer needs to count steps, or look to a partner for guidance, as Wagley does. She focuses on Nemeth's face all the while she's dancing, he said, because she reads his lips for instructions, like "quick" or "slow" to keep the rhythm.
"And I'll tell her if she leans too heavily," he said, and that would indicate she isn't maintaining proper posture, which was a problem early on. "I keep telling her to take smaller steps. And a big challenge for her is moving her hips for the Latin dancing."
And she must remember step counts. The merengue, for example, is danced on eight counts, equally timed; the rumba is quick-quick-slow; the cha-cha is cha-cha-cha, rock step, and the mambo is 1 -- hold -- 2-3-4.
Sue Bungard, director of community services at the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center, knows the drill. She is deaf and attended Gallaudet, where students held homecoming dances. "The band would play loud, and we'd have a wonderful time," she said. And they'd keep the music cranked up in the student lounge, too.
But college wasn't her first introduction to dance. "I took tap and ballet as a child, and I took line dancing," she said. "I just followed along."

Don't forget to watch "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday night at 8 pm Eastern Time on ABC. Here is a link of this show below:


Dancing with the Stars

Updates On My Belly

About my stomach, it's improving slowly. Still no pains. I am getting my appetite and energy back. I am glad that. I almost ate all of food. Thanks to pills from health food store. I am still taking them everyday. I figured it took me in a month to get better. Hopefully, I will go to the beach tomorrow when the temperature hits 87 degrees and swimming in May or June. But first I have to buy a new bathing suit at the mall cuz I ended up sizing 4-6 quickly, not almost size 12 anymore. I might go to the mall next month before anyone can grab a perfect bathing suit. Not at Wal-Mart cuz I had a difficult time to find the right bathing suit there. JCPenney is better. Or Sears. Or Beall's in Ormond Beach. Wish me luck.

Picture Perfect: Empty

This is California Pairie on the way to Stinson Beach for visiting relatives on my father's side during Thanksgiving week 1996.  Stinson Beach is north of San Francisco.  I can tell that it looks so quiet and empty.  So beautiful.  The weather looked cool and sunny back then.  The place u can't see on west of it is Pacific Ocean.

Three Things Meme

A Tag snagged from Suey's Stuff

Instructions:  After READING my answers, COPY to your blog, ERASE my answers and ENTER your own!

3 Jobs I Have Had In My Life:

1.  Secertary at my brother's law office in Melbourne, Florida

2.  Employed at the bridal shop in Daytona Beach

3.  Tagger at a sunglasses company in Ormond Beach

3 Movies I Would Watch Over And Over:

1.  Lord of the Rings 3 Parts

2.  Evolution

3.  Hawaii

3 Most Recent Books

1.  Charles Dickens

2.  Bird of Another Heaven

3.  Diana:  Her True Story

3 Three Places I Have Lived:

1.  Lived in California with my family for 8 months when I was a teenager

2.  Grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

3.  As a little girl, lived at a girls' dorm in Philadelphia for about 2 years

3 TV Shows That I Watch:

1.  American Idol

2.  Live With Regis and Kelly

3.  Ghost Whisperer 

3 Places I Have Been:

1.  The White House 

2. The top of the Sears Tower

3.  The Golden Gate Bridge

3 of my favorite foods (cuisine):

1.  Cookies and Cakes and ice cream

2.  Biscuits with jelly 

3.  Pancakes 

3 Places I'd Rather Be Right Now: (In No Particular Order)

1.  in bed still sleeping

2.  on a beach in my hometown

3.  Sit in the wheelchair on the porch and read a book outside

3 Friends I Think Will Respond:

no clue

3 Things I Am Looking Forward To This Year:

1.  Maybe summer vacation

2.  Return to swimming when I am feeling better

3.  Move to another place but still don't know when until it's time

3 Extra Curricular Activities I Like

1.  reading

2.  Watch DVD movies

3.  Going to deaf club

Feel free to take the challenge!

City Island Library. Updates On My Stomach.

This is a Daytona Beach Regional Library, known as The City Island Library. It looks huge, huh?

I went to the library on the City Island in Daytona Beach with my mother yesterday afternoon. The library looks huge than Ormond Beach Public Library. It's called Daytona Beach Regional Library. I rarely went to the City Island library much until I returned there for the first time. I can't remember when the last time I went there. Next to that huge library is the park. South of it is the baseball stadium where famous black baseball player named Jackie Robinson trained in 1946. The name of baseball stadium is The Jackie Robinson Ballpark after him. East of the library is Halifax River. Back to the library, I stayed there for few hours. I've borrowed 5 DVD movies from there. My mother was doing a research to find old articles that she wrote in mircofilm. She used to be a columnist for Daytona Beach News-Journal for few years. Her old articles were dated back in 1990. Mom was having a hard time to figure out how to use a microfilm. She must have forgotten about it. I noticed her neck hurts. It's probably her age. She sat there for a long time. When I went to the reading area, I noticed there are some strange men sitting at the table. I could hear they talk loud but don't understand what they are discussing. I can tell that those strange men are homeless. I saw some homeless people wandering around the City Island when I arrived at the library earlier. They stay in that area near The Salvation Army. The Salvation Army is located north of the library and near the bridge and where so many homeless people stay. Some homeless people come to the library for reading newspapers and magazines. Not at the Ormond Beach Public Library much. It's a different area cuz we are on the level of middle income. Back to the reading area, those homeless guys stay there for several hours. I avoided them and read the magazine, "The Entertainment Weekly" at the other table far from their table. In the part of Entertainment Weekly, I was reading about the upcoming movie, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". It's very interesting to find out. But I am not finished reading to 2 of 4 steps in that section when Mom said it's time to go home. She looked tired. I was concerning about her. Mom missed lunch. She didn't have time. She's feeling dizzy. I did eat lunch before I left home. And then I went home.

Updates On My Stomach
My stomach is improving but still working in a progress by taking pills everyday. I sent Mom to get 2 bottles at a health food store for me last Saturday. I don't feel tired anymore. That's good news. Also, still no pains but about decreasing. I went back to do exericses.

Updates On My Stomach

Pains in my belly are gone no more since yesterday. That's good news but not yet, pills I am still taking are too slow to heal me. I am waiting for going back to a normal again but I also don't want to feel trapping here at my apt too long, u know. I really want to go out for fun. I am trying to eat a huge food but the thing prevents me from it. I am concerning about my weight. I want a hurry up to get better. I've decided to stop doing exercises for awhile until I get back to normal again. Wish me well.

Have a good weekend!

1888 Photo Depicts Helen Keller, Teacher Sullivan

This 1888 photo released by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston shows Helen Keller when she was 8 years old, left, holding hands with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, during a summer vacation to Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod.

When I heard about a 1888 photo of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, on the TV news last night and this morning, it got me interesting and this photo looks cool. I have never seen this one like that before. But I can't see the sign language of Sullivan spelling "doll" in that photo. I can tell that Helen was about improving her behavior and English skills during the year 1888. She looked much better than the year before. A year before 1888, Helen was a troublemaker and messy but in that 1888 photo, she looked so pretty and recovered. Wow! I am so impressed by seeing that photo.

1888 photo depicts Helen Keller, teacher

Society staff discovers 1888 image from donated collection

The Associated Press

updated 7:48 p.m. ET, Wed., March. 5, 2008

BOSTON - Researchers have uncovered a rare photograph of a young Helen Keller with her teacher Anne Sullivan, nearly 120 years after it was taken on Cape Cod and tucked inside a family album.
The photograph, shot in July 1888 in Brewster, shows an 8-year-old Helen sitting outside in a light-colored dress, holding Sullivan's hand and cradling one of her beloved dolls.
Experts on Keller's life believe it could be the earliest photo of the two women together and the only one showing the blind and deaf child with a doll — the first word Sullivan spelled for Keller after they met in 1887 — according to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which now has the photo.
"It's really one of the best images I've seen in a long, long time," said Helen Selsdon, an archivist at the American Federation for the Blind, where Keller worked for more than 40 years. "This is just a huge visual addition to the history of Helen and Annie."
Image stuffed inside a family album For more than a century, though, the photograph was hidden in an album that belonged to the family of Thaxter Spencer, an 87-year-old man in Waltham.
Spencer's mother, Hope Thaxter Parks, often stayed at the Elijah Cobb House on Cape Cod during the summer as a child. In July 1888, she played with Keller, whose family had traveled from Tuscumbia, Ala., to vacation in Massachusetts.
Spencer, who doesn't know which of his relatives took the picture, told the society that his mother, four years younger than Helen, remembered Helen exploring her face with her hands.
In June, Spencer donated a large collection of photo albums, letters, diaries and other heirlooms to the genealogical society, which preserves artifacts from New England families for future research.
"I never thought much about it," Spencer said in a statement released by the society. "It just seemed like something no one would find very interesting." Spencer has recently been hospitalized and could not be reached for comment.
It wasn't until recently that staff at the society realized the photograph's significance.
'It's a beautiful portrait' D. Brenton Simons, the society's president and CEO, said the photograph offers a glimpse of what was a very important time in Keller's life.
Sullivan was hired in 1887 to teach Keller, who had been left blind and deaf after an illness at the age of 1 1/2. With her new teacher, Keller learned language from words spelled manually into her hand. Not quite 7, the girl went from an angry, frustrated child without a way to communicate to an eager scholar.
While "doll" was the first word spelled into her hand, Helen finally comprehended the meaning of language a few weeks later with the word "water," as famously depicted in the film "The Miracle Worker." Sullivan stayed at her side until her death in 1936, and Keller became a world-famous author and humanitarian. She died in 1968.
Jan Seymour-Ford, a research librarian at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, which both Sullivan and Keller attended, said she was moved to see how deeply connected the women were, even in 1888.
"The way Anne is gazing so intently at Helen, I think it's a beautiful portrait of the devotion that lasted between these two women all of Anne's life," Seymour-Ford said.
Selsdon said the photograph is valuable because it shows many elements of Keller's childhood: that devotion, Sullivan's push to teach Helen outdoors and Helen's attachment to her baby dolls, one of which was given to her upon Sullivan's arrival as her teacher.
"It's a beautiful composition," she said. "It's not even the individual elements. It's the fact that it has all of the components."

Pains In My Belly. Trip to Wal-Mart. Patrick Swayze.

Hello, Bloggers!
I am back. I hope pains in my belly will be gone anymore this afternoon. It could be a gas but I already figured it out. It drove me crazy. I fear I would be losing weight again if I don't eat plenty of food much. I push the food away from me again when I am feeling in pains in the evening. I also hope my vitamins (pills) from heath food store are still working but I really need a medication immediately. Yesterday, I had a disagreement with my mother who don't like very strong medications and don't believe in doctors cuz they can't find anything inside the body in the fax message. I told her I want to see a doctor and need a medication right away. Mom experienced she had a colonoscopy 4 times but a doctor can't find anything. I didn't know that she has until I found out last Fall before I had a surgery. Anyways, when I found out I am asked to be invited to a Silent Signing Dinner from one of my deaf club friends in an e-mail last Monday, I am not sure I can go there cuz I am concerning my belly but I must needing to get a medication first. Silent Signing Dinner will take a place next Friday March 14th. I need to get out of my apt cuz it's too boring to me.
Last Tuesday morning, I went to Wal-Mart. I was feeling great as if I am kept moving around as I am busy that morning. I went straight to McDonald's for ordering my breakfast. My breakfast is good. During breakfast, I noticed an old man looking at Wal-Mart employees who were eating breakfast as if he's checking his watch that tells him when they will be finished eating it. I suspected something but I don't know what it is. After breakfast, I continued doing a food shopping and carried a cup of my coffee. I bought 2 things but I can't tell u what they are. I went home when I finished shopping.
That Tuesday afternoon, I felt downward again when a pain in my belly came back. Ugh. I felt tired and wanted to take a nap. I did napping that afternoon.


Heard about Patrick Swayze's disease on news. I hope his cancer will be gone no more quickly. Wish Swayze a good luck. I saw some of Swayze's movies years ago, in the 1990s. Yeah, just like Michael Landon, a TV actor, who had a pancreatic cancer many years ago. That's why Michael drank too much alcohol.