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Known For

Dana Plato is known for:

  • Exorcist II: The Heretic
    Bizarre nightmares plague Regan MacNeil four years after her possession and exorcism. Has the demon returned? And if so, can the combined faith and knowledge of a Vatican investigator and a hypnotic research specialist free her from its grasp?
  • Different Strokes
    A Los Angeles fashion model falls in love with a female art director during a photo shoot which puts their newfound romance at odds with the model's photographer boyfriend.

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Biography

Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday, November 7, 1964. Dana made an impact on the TV screen when she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond in the TV hit sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978) from 1978-1986. After the series ended, Dana had difficulty finding more acting work. Sometimes she would act in a made-for-TV movie or a low- budget silver-screen film. She was married for Lanny Lambert for seven years and they had a son. Plato was arrested in 1991 for robbing a Las Vegas video store and placed on probation; the next year she was arrested again, this time for forging a Valium prescription. She had just finished an interview with Howard Stern in the spring of 1999 when she and her fiancé, Robert Menchaca, were headed back to California. She hoped the interview would revive her stalled career. They stopped at his parents' house in Moore, Oklahoma for a Mother's-Day-weekend visit; on Saturday, May 8, 1999, Dana died of what appeared to be an accidental overdose of the painkiller "Loritab". On May 21, a coroner's inquest ruled her death a suicide because of the large amount of drugs in her body and her history of past suicide attempts. She was 34 years old.