Years active: 1978 - 1999 (started around 13 years old; 21 years in the business)
About Dana Plato
Dana Plato's is one of fairly innumerable Hollywood stories that feels like it should have ended better. More happily. Born a Scorpio--with all that THAT implies!--in southern California--with all that THAT implies!--Dana was born the second child of an unwed teenage mother who was already struggling to feed an 18-month old. In June of 1965, she (Dana) was adopted by one Dan Plato, owner-operator of a trucking company, and his wife Florine, aka "Kay." Yes, she was born a Strain but became a Plato. (What are the odds?) She was raised in the San Fernando Valley, but at the age of 3, her parents divorced, and the raising of her was left to, surprisingly enough, her mother.
Dana was most notable, and is best-remembered today, for her role as Kimberly Drummond on the TV sitcom, DIFF'RENT STROKES from 1978-1986. After she left that cast, she tried to establish herself as an actress with only limited success. She did work, sporadically, in several made-for-TV movies and indie films, as well as voice-over work. Later, she worked in adult films, but no one avenue ever seemed to "gel" for her. At the age of 34, after some years of struggling with intermittent poverty and not-so-intermittent substance abuse problems, she died of an overdose of prescription drugs. For a time, it had seemed she was one fo the brighter lights among the child stars, and in retrospect it seems fairly clear that Hollywood could have done a better job of rolling out the red carpet for her, instead of her going to such a tragic end.
You will be remembered, Dana Kimberly Drummond Plato, and mourned. You will be missed, for all time. Ave atque vale.
