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Dana Michelle Plato (née Strain; November 7, 1964 - May 8, 1999) was an American actress. An influential teen idol of the late 1970s and early 1980s, she played Kimberly Drummond on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978-1986). Her personal struggles with substance abuse were well documented by the media and led to her premature death at the age of 34. Her life has retrospectively been called a "tragedy".
Plato was born to a teen mother and was adopted as an infant. She was raised in the San Fernando Valley and was an accomplished figure skater before acting. Her acting career began with numerous commercial appearances, and her television debut came at the age of ten with a brief appearance on the television series The Six Million Dollar Man (1975). Plato subsequently appeared in the horror films Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and Return to Boggy Creek (1977), and the Oscar-winning film California Suite (1978). In recognition for her tenure on Diff'rent Strokes, she received nominations for a Young Artist Award and two TV Land Awards. Following the show, she worked sporadically in independent films and B movies, and appeared in the video game Night Trap (1992).
In December 1983, Plato moved in with her boyfriend, rock guitarist Lanny Lambert. The couple married on April 24, 1984, and their only child, Tyler Edward Lambert, was born on July 2, 1984. When it was revealed that she was pregnant, she was written out of Diff'rent Strokes. Her co-star Conrad Bain revealed that she was happy about her baby, stating in an interview with People magazine: "She deliberately got pregnant while doing the series, when I spoke to her about it, she was enthusiastic about having done that... [saying that] 'When I get the baby, I will never be alone again.'"
In her March 1990 divorce, Plato lost custody of her son to Lambert and was given visitation rights. She then became engaged to Fred Potts, a filmmaker, but the romance ended. She was later married to actor and producer Scott Atkins (Scotty Gelt) in Vancouver for one month, but the marriage was annulled. Plato got engaged to her manager Robert Menchaca, six years her junior, with whom she lived in a motor home in Navarre, Florida.
On February 28, 1991, Plato entered a Las Vegas video store, produced a pellet gun, and demanded the money in the cash register. After she left with the money, the clerk called 9-1-1 and said, "I've just been robbed by the girl who played Kimberly on Diff'rent Strokes." Approximately fifteen minutes after the robbery, Plato returned to the scene and was immediately arrested. She had stolen $164. Entertainer Wayne Newton posted her $13,000 bail, and Plato was given five years' probation. She subsequently became a subject of the national debate surrounding troubled child stars, particularly given the difficulties of her Diff'rent Strokes co-stars Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman.
In January 1992 Plato was arrested for forging a prescription for diazepam. She served thirty days in jail for violating the terms of her probation and immediately entered a drug rehabilitation program. Plato later moved to Las Vegas, where she struggled with poverty and unemployment. At one point she worked at a dry-cleaning store, where customers reported being impressed by her lack of errors.
On May 7, 1999, the day before she died, Plato appeared on The Howard Stern Show. She spoke about her life, discussing her financial problems and past run-ins with the law. She admitted to being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Many callers to the show insulted Plato and questioned her sobriety, which angered and provoked her, and she defiantly offered to take a drug test on the air. Some callers, as well as host Howard Stern, came to Plato's defense, though Stern also referred to himself as "an enabler" and sarcastically offered Plato drugs. Although she allowed a hair to be cut for the test, Stern later claimed she asked for it back after the interview.
On May 8, 1999, Plato and Menchaca were returning to California and stopped at Menchaca's mother's home in Moore, Oklahoma. Later on in the visit, Plato said that she felt unwell and took a few doses of a hydrocodone / acetaminophen painkiller (Lortab), along with the muscle-relaxant carisoprodol (Soma),and went to lie down with Menchaca, inside her Winnebago motor home, which was parked outside the house. Upon waking up, Menchaca and the family discovered that Plato had died in her sleep at the age of 34.
Plato's body was cremated and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
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