Foundation Interview: Geri Jewell 

When Geri Jewell was cast on The Facts of Life, the popular 1979–88 NBC sitcom, she became the first person with a visible disability to have a recurring role on a U.S. primetime series. At the time, she didn't fully realize how significant that fact was: "I think it was because I never saw myself as 'disabled.' I didn't realize until years later how big that really was."

Jewell began her career as a stand-up comedian at The Comedy Store. Though her role on The Facts of Life from 1980 to '84 broke barriers and brought her fame, her television career stagnated in the years after. When a 1985 opportunity to perform stand-up at the White House was cut from 10 to 2 minutes, she scrapped her act entirely and instead read a statement on her frustration at being censored and silenced. Her words led to an invitation to speak at the Kennedy Center, a desire to share her experiences with a wider audience and her decades-long work as a disability advocate.

Jewell's return to television was aided by a couple of Hollywood heavyweights who enjoyed her work on The Facts of Life. Stephen J. Cannell, creator of 21 Jump Street, bought her idea for an episode of that show (on which she guest-starred), and later, a chance encounter with writer-producer David Milch led to her role on HBO's Deadwood as Jewel, a sassy mining-camp saloon maid. She reprised that role in Deadwood: The Movie. 

The title of her 2011 autobiography, I'm Walking as Straight as I Can, has a double meaning, referring both to her sexuality and the challenges she's faced as a woman born with cerebral palsy. Throughout the many obstacles she's encountered, comedy remains a key outlet for her. As she explains in her book, "I believe that to survive hardship and adversity, we must have a healthy sense of humor about oneself and the world around us."

Jewell was interviewed in March 2016 by Adrienne Faillace, producer for The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, a program of the Television Academy Foundation. The following is an edited excerpt of their conversation. The entire interview can be screened at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.

Did you do any performing when you were little?

I was always a storyteller. From early on I had a wild imagination, and I think that's what got me through.

I always thought that someday I would be on television, because I wanted it that badly. I honestly thought that once I got into television, cerebral palsy would become insignificant. It did quite the opposite. In every single interview that I've ever had, the first questions were always about cerebral palsy. Always. I was like, "Can you forget about that? Can we talk about something else?"

I realized that on a spiritual level, as a kid, I needed that dream, because it enabled me to do the work that I've come into the world to do. There was a reason for me believing the fantasy and then entering the reality and doing something with it.

How did you start to foster your interest in performing?

I was in special ed until I was 15, and I did a play in my last year of special ed which I wrote and put on in front of the whole school. I've always had that love. Then, in high school, one of the first roles I had was in a production of The Teahouse of the August Moon. I fell in love with the stage from that day on. I always wanted to perform. I never wanted to do stand-up. That was not a part of my plan.

When I was in my third year of college, I was very frustrated. I was sitting in the disabled services department with my friend Alex Valdez, who was blind. I was flunking classes, and I said, "I don't know why I'm doing this. I really want to be an actress. I want to be a comedian like Carol Burnett." And he said, "Why don't you do what I do? I go to The Comedy Store every week in L.A. and tell blind jokes." I said, "That may work for you, Alex, but I see perfectly fine." "No, you're going to tell cerebral palsy jokes." I had no idea what I was getting into.

The first night I ever performed, I got a standing ovation, and it changed my life. I remember that night, emotionally, to this day.

How did you first get into television?

Fern Field Brooks was producing the second annual Media Access Awards in 1980, and someone had told her that there was this really funny young comedian with cerebral palsy. They convinced her to come and see me perform, and she was blown away. She hired me for the awards show, and in the audience were [Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life star] Charlotte Rae and [producer] Norman Lear. Norman came up to me afterwards and said, "You know, kid, you're really funny. But you're way before your time." I said, "Well, wait a couple months."

I was the first character with a visible disability cast in a series [The Facts of Life]. I broke ground with that, and I think it was because I never saw myself as "disabled." I didn't realize until years later how big that really was. My role models didn't, per se, have disabilities. The only disabilities that I had seen on television were on telethons. Even if there were shows about somebody with a disability, it was always so dramatic. It was never comical. I think that's why The Facts of Life had problems with me. They didn't know what to do with me. I think, in part, they expected Emmy nominations for episodes they wrote about me. Every single episode I did, they would take ads out in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. "For your consideration: Geri Jewell on The Facts of Life," again and again, and I never got nominated. I think it was a disappointment. Like Norman Lear said, "You're way before your time." Hollywood just wasn't ready for someone like me.

How did you come to be on The Facts of Life?

Norman set up a meeting with [production consultant] Al Burton. Norman suggested that I be Blair's cousin, which was brilliant, because Blair was stuck-up and really didn't have substance, and I think my character gave her heart. It was an amazing cast to work with. Lisa Whelchel [who played Blair] and I became very good friends.

I did this dance number with Blair on the first episode ["Cousin Geri"], and at the time I hated dancing with a passion, because I didn't want to be laughed at. I have cerebral palsy, and what do they do? They write a dance in the script. I was so nervous about it.

What people don't understand about cerebral palsy is that in order for me to function, my brain operates on several different tracks. When I'm speaking, that's one track, but what's going on in another track is, "Don't move that hand that way, don't walk this way, don't move this way." So, I've got this track trying to control my movements, and then the track trying to perform, and then the track remembering the line. I've got all three tracks — that's like bumper-to-bumper traffic. I knocked on Lisa's dressing room door, and I felt very insecure. I said, "Lisa, can you please help me with this dance number and the lines and the movements?" And she did. She spent hours with me.

One of the lines I said in that episode was, "Questions don't hurt, ignorance does." That was a profound line that I can't take credit for. Joel Kimmel and Ann Gibbs wrote that line, and to this day, people remember it. I immediately was asked back the following season, and it was a dream come true.

When you were asked back as a recurring character, was there any discussion of how your role might be expanded?

It's murky. There were a lot of discussions. I remember signing contracts about an option for my own series, and there was an episode written called "Here's Geri" that never filmed. That hurt. I was 23 when I got The Facts of Life. Even though I was an adult, because of being in special ed for as many years as I was, and [being] sheltered, I was years younger emotionally than my 23 years. Hollywood didn't know it. They didn't understand how fragile I was in some ways. To say that you're going to get your own series, to have that episode taken away ... and then they changed my name. My name was Geri Warner, Blair Warner's cousin, and then they changed it to Geri Tyler with no explanation. It felt like they were pulling me away from the show, little by little.

At that time, so many people were taking advantage of me. I had a manager that went to prison for $1.3 million of embezzlement and security fraud. He left me with no money. I was struggling with my sexuality, slowly being taken away from The Facts of Life, and then learning a real hard fact of life, [as] I didn't work in Hollywood for seven years after that.

It was an interesting journey. At that time, appearing on a major network show, millions of people saw you overnight. It was instant fame. I didn't realize the full impact until the '90s, when I started performing stand-up at college campuses. Students would come up to me and say, "I was bullied as a kid, and then I saw your character on The Facts of Life, and you gave me the courage to keep going." I heard that so many times, how that character impacted so many young people's lives. I was totally oblivious to it, that I gave hope to children with disabilities to reach for their dreams. There are so many actors and actresses with disabilities with that dream today. We're still fighting for visibility in that medium.

Only 2% of actors with disabilities are working, and it's too bad, because we're part of the huge range of diversity. And the thing that Hollywood doesn't understand is that every time you cast a person with a disability in a role — as a doctor, teacher, lawyer — that improves the ability of someone in real life getting that job. Television has to catch up and portray people with disabilities in roles that have nothing to do with disability. I mean, I can't be a brain surgeon, but there's no reason why someone like me couldn't be a lawyer or a teacher or a mother or a wife or a sister of someone ... who just happens to have a disability. We have worked and worked and worked towards that. We're not there yet.

In 1990 you came up with a story for an episode of 21 Jump Street, and guest-starred in it as well.

I wanted to work so badly. I hadn't worked in Hollywood since The Facts of Life. In the early '80s I had gone to a party and met Stephen Cannell. He was telling me how proud he was of me for my work on The Facts of Life, and I said thank you. And he said, "You and I are a lot alike." I'm looking at him: "Yeah?" He said, "I have dyslexia. I have a disability, too, and I didn't let my disability get in my way either, and that's why I have total respect for you." I never forgot that. So, in the early '90s I called him and asked if he would look at a treatment I wrote for 21 Jump Street. They bought it.

In 2004, you started playing Jewel on the HBO series Deadwood.

That was amazing. In 2002, I had to go to this pharmacy in Santa Monica to pick up Botox, because it's the only thing that could be shot into my neck for chronic pain after my spinal cord surgery. In line, this man turned around and said, "Oh my God, you're Geri Jewell. I love you. I'm a huge fan of yours. I haven't seen you on TV in a long time." I said, "True." And he said, "Well, you want a television series?" I said, "This is a pharmacy, right?" He laughed and said, "In case you don't recognize me, my name is David Milch." "The executive producer of NYPD Blue?" "Yep. I just signed a contract with HBO. I'm doing a new show called Deadwood. You want to do a Western?" I looked up as far as I could with my titanium neck, and I said, "God, you have a real quirky sense of humor. I'm standing here with cerebral palsy, dependent on Botox, and David Milch wants me to ride a horse?"

I will be in debt to him for the rest of my life, because he put me back on the map.

How would you describe your character, Jewel?

I cocreated Jewel, which was another wonderful compliment that David paid me. I met with his writers, and he said, "I wanna know what's inside you, in your heart, how you think. I want you to develop this character for me." I was totally blown away. I went home and read everything I could on the 1800s and Westerns. I sent him 15–18 pages of backstory. He called within 30 minutes and said, "I like 98% of it. You're a brilliant writer, Geri." That meant so much to me.

And it was one of the most supportive casts that I have ever worked with. I hadn't even fully recovered from spinal cord surgery, and here it is again, David writes a dance scene. Why do they keep doing this to me?! I had a dance scene with Doc Cochran, and I was brought to set early that morning expecting to film this scene shortly after lunch. They got so far behind that it did not get shot until two in the morning, and I was exhausted. It was freezing. I was in so much physical pain. Brad [Dourif, who played Doc] saw it and said, "Geri, let's hang this up. We can tell the producer that we'll do this tomorrow. You can't do this." I said, "Brad, I have to. I'm also an actor with a disability, and if I slow this set because of my disability, I'll never work again. Please don't make it an issue." He understood my side, and said, "Okay." Even though the scene was me teaching Doc Cochran how to dance, he literally, with all his strength, picked me up off the ground and carried me through the whole scene.

What advice would you offer to someone with a disability who wants to pursue a career in entertainment?

To truly, truly accept yourself. Don't expect others to accept you when you can't do that yourself. Love yourself. If you're going into the field of entertainment, don't go into it for fame, don't go into it for money, because that is an empty reward. I'm not saying that you won't ever find fame or get money. But the true gift of a performer is to experience the joy of performing in the moment, not chasing after something. So go into it for the right reason. 

The contributing editor for Foundation Interviews is Adrienne Faillace. 

Since 1997, the Television Academy Foundation has conducted over 900 one-of-a-kind, long-form interviews with industry pioneers and change-makers across multiple professions. The Foundation invites you to make a gift to the Interviews Preservation Fund to help preserve this invaluable resource for generations to come. To learn more, please contact Amani Roland, chief advancement officer, at roland@televisionacademy.com or (818)754-2829.

Click here to see more interviews.

The full version of this article originally appeared in emmy magazine, issue #7, 2024, under the title "Foundation Interviews: Geri Jewell."