AT HOME IN HER STUNNING SANTA BARBARA MANSION MARLEE MATLIN THE OSCAR WINNER IS JOINED BY HER DAUGHTER SARAH AS SHE TALKS FAMILY LIFE AND DEAF RIGHTS ACTIVISM

‘My dad has a favourite word, “try”, and he instilled it in me. So I don’t sit around waiting for projects to come to me. I go out looking for them’

Every year after the Academy Awards, Hollywood chatter turns to the so-called “Oscar curse”. Perhaps it’s an effort to console those who haven’t won because, as legend has it, if you win the coveted statuette, it might be many years before you work again.

“Curse? What curse? I haven’t stopped working for 35 years!” says US actress, author and deaf activist Marlee Matlin, who made film history when she took home the Best Actress Academy Award for her stellar turn in Children of a Lesser God in 1987.

At 21 years and 218 days old, she