 |
Linda Bove | |
|---|---|
| Born | Garfield, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Gallaudet University (B.S. Library Science 1968) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1971–present |
| Spouse | |
Linda Bove Waterstreet is a Deaf American actress, her most notable role being a fictionalized version of herself in the PBS children's series Sesame Street from 1971 to 2002. Bove was the first Deaf actress to be a member of the program's recurring cast.
Bove was born in Garfield, New Jersey, a Deaf child born to two Deaf parents. She has one brother, Michael, who is hearing. As a child, she attended St. Joseph School for the Deaf in The Bronx, New York and subsequently Marie H. Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Trenton, New Jersey, from which she graduated in 1963. She attended Gallaudet College, now Gallaudet University, studying library science. From there, she became interested in theatre. She participated in several theatrical productions at Gallaudet including The Threepenny Opera and poetic characterizations of the Spoon River Anthology . In her senior year, she studied in a Summer School Program at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD).
Bove is an active member of the Deaf arts community.
Bove appeared in an episode of Happy Days as Allison, Arthur Fonzarelli's deaf love interest. She also performed on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow , with the latter role making her one of the first deaf actors to become a regular on a soap opera series.
She also performed as a member of the National Theatre of the Deaf, [1] founded in 1967.
Many cast members, crew, and technicians of the shows on which Bove has performed have learned sign language from her. [2]
Linda, portrayed by Bove, was a character on the children's program Sesame Street . When Bove debuted on Sesame Street with NTD in April 1971 (Episode 0243) [3] as the Deaf character of her namesake, she was the first deaf performer on the show. [4] Initially appearing sporadically, she became a regular member of the cast in 1975, and she continued to appear until 2002, making Linda the longest-running deaf character and Bove the longest-working Deaf actor on a single series in television history.[ citation needed ] In 2019, Linda returned to the franchise in the television special Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration , 17 years after her last appearance. [5] [6] She has introduced millions of children to sign language and issues surrounding the Deaf community, increasing public awareness of Deaf culture and making it clear that it is okay to be deaf. [7] Her character owns a very playful dog, Barkley.
Linda communicated only in American Sign Language and interacted with other members of the Sesame Street community as a citizen and resident of the community. The person who most often interpreted for her was Bob and eventually, he and Linda were portrayed in a romantic relationship. Linda made her living as a librarian, and had an assistant, Micki Barnett, who would read stories to the children, while Linda signed them.[ citation needed ]
The staff writers at Sesame Street were initially unsure of how to write for her. Bove said,
When I joined the cast I found the writers would write about 'How would a deaf person do this?' 'How does a deaf person do that?' and it was just related to my deafness and it didn't feel like they were treating me as a person. I found my character one-dimensional and kind of boring. It showed how brave a deaf person was to do this and that in everyday life. I said it was no big deal. I have a sense of humor; why don't you show that? I can be angry over something. Show that I can have a relationship with another person. Maybe a love relationship with Bob. It's not perfect, but... We do have misunderstandings over sign language, make fun of it, and show the funny side of it. It's OK."[ citation needed ]
In addition to playing Linda, Bove appeared frequently in various sketches and silent segments, where she was often paired up with Maria, played by Sonia Manzano, often playing a supporting role in Manzano's Charlie Chaplin silent film sketches (with occasional voiceovers), usually just as a woman in the sketch, but played a second Tramp if two were needed (e.g. the mirror sketch and the opening umbrellas sketch). Manzano and Bove worked in many other sketches together, both with and without dialogue, on-camera, or voiceover.[ citation needed ]
In the 1970s, Bove and some of her colleagues started the Little Theatre of the Deaf to attract more deaf people, including children, to theater and the company gained national and international attention. It dealt with communication among deaf people and the importance of teaching sign language to deaf children.[ citation needed ]
In 1979, Bove and NTD traveled on a 30,000 mile world tour. Their biggest success was in Japan, where their show was attended by the royal family and they were invited to appear on a Japanese television show.[ citation needed ]
In 1991, Bove and her husband Ed Waterstreet founded Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles, the first theater company run by deaf actors. While working with DWT, she starred in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, based on Joan of Arc. The company performs plays in sign language and adjusts dialog accordingly. Signed dialog is interpreted into spoken language in order to bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing communities. [8]
She appeared in several roles in the national tour of the Deaf West production of Big River in 2005. [9]
Bove was also involved in a number of other projects in the Deaf community, several related to children. She had a brief role in The Land Before Time IV : when the dinosaur characters would speak, Bove would appear in a picture-in-picture box in the lower corner of the screen signing the dialog. She has also made many videos in American Sign Language such as Sign Me a Story and has starred in several productions of the play Children of a Lesser God . [1]
In 1970, Bove married Ed Waterstreet, who she met when they both worked at the National Theatre of the Deaf. [10]
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Sesame Street | Linda | TV series, 1971–2002 |
| 1973 | Search for Tomorrow | Melissa Hayley Weldon | TV series, unknown episodes |
| 1978 | Christmas Eve on Sesame Street | Linda | TV movie |
| 1979 | A Walking Tour of Sesame Street | TV movie | |
| 1980 | Happy Days | Allison | TV series, one episode "Allison" |
| 1983 | Don't Eat the Pictures | Linda | TV movie |
| 1985 | Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird | Movie | |
| 1986 | Children of a Lesser God | Marian Loesser | Movie |
| 1987 | Sign me a Story | Herself, Various Characters | Educational video featuring signed versions of fairy tales |
| 1989 | Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting | Herself | TV special |
| 1996 | Somebody to Love | Computer | Voice only |
| 2005 | Friends to the Rescue | a fictional version of herself | Direct to video |
| 2010 | Weeds | Child Protective Services Officer | 3 episodes |
| 2019 | Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration | Linda | TV special |
In 1980, Sesame Street and the National Theatre of the Deaf collaborated on publishing a book, Sign Language Fun With Linda Bove [2]
Marlee Matlin is an American actress, author, and activist. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Aloysius Snuffleupagus, more commonly known as Mr. Snuffleupagus or Snuffy for short, is one of the characters on Sesame Street, a PBS/HBO educational television program for young children. He is a giant anteater-like mammoth -creature, without tusks or (visible) ears, and has a long thick pointed tail, similar in shape to that of a dinosaur or other reptile. He has long thick brown, feathery hair and a trunk, or "snuffle", that sometimes drags along the ground. He is Big Bird's best friend and has a younger sister named Alice. He also attends "Snufflegarden".
Sonia Manzano is an American actress, screenwriter, and author. She is best known for playing Maria on Sesame Street from 1971 to 2015. She received a Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy Award in 2016.
Dorothy "Dot" Miles was a Welsh poet and activist in the deaf community. Throughout her life, she composed her poems in English, British Sign Language, and American Sign Language. Her work laid the foundations for modern sign language poetry in the United States and the United Kingdom. She is regarded as the pioneer of BSL poetry and her work influenced many contemporary Deaf poets.
Phyllis Annetta Frelich was a deaf American actress. She was the first deaf actor to win a Tony Award.
The National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) is a Connecticut-based theatre company founded in 1967. It is the oldest theatre company in the United States with a continuous history of domestic and international touring, as well as producing original works. NTD productions combine American Sign Language with spoken language to fulfill the theatre's mission statement of linking Deaf and hearing communities, providing more exposure to sign language, and educating the public about Deaf art. The NTD is affiliated with a drama school, also founded in 1967, and with the Little Theatre of the Deaf (LTD), established in 1968 to produce shows for a younger audience.
Ed Waterstreet is a Deaf American actor and one of the founders and the artistic director of Deaf West Theatre, which was established in 1991, and was the first resident theatre company in America operating under the direction of a deaf artistic director.
"Sing" is a 1971 song written by Joe Raposo for the children's television show Sesame Street as its signature song. In 1973, it gained popularity when performed by Carpenters, a #3 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Abby Cadabby, mostly referred to as just Abby, is a Muppet character on the PBS/HBO children's television show Sesame Street, performed by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph. On August 14, 2006, Abby made her debut in the first episode of Sesame Street’s 37th season, when she moved into the neighborhood and met some of the Street's residents. On the day of her debut, her wand broke; Big Bird told her to take her wand to the Fix-It Shop where Maria would fix it. Season 40 features her CGI animated recurring segments titled Abby's Flying Fairy School which was adapted into a proper spin-off. She is also currently the host of another spin-off Abby's Amazing Adventures, with her stepbrother Rudy, which debuted in 2018.
The American School for the Deaf (ASD), originally The American Asylum, At Hartford, For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf, is the oldest permanent school for the deaf in the United States, and the first school for deaf children anywhere in the western hemisphere. It was founded April 15, 1817, in Hartford, Connecticut, by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Mason Cogswell, and Laurent Clerc and became a state-supported school later that year.
Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between Sarah Norman, a deaf student, and her former teacher, James Leeds. It premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 1979, was produced on Broadway in 1980 and in the West End in 1981. It won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play.
Laura Redden Searing was a deaf poet and journalist. Her first book of poetry published was Idyls of Battle, and Poems of the Rebellion (1864). She also wrote under the male pseudonym Howard Glyndon. Significantly, the town of Glyndon, Minnesota was founded in 1872 and named in honor of the writer.
A wide variety of characters have appeared on the American children's television series Sesame Street. Many of the characters are Muppets, which are puppets made in Jim Henson's distinctive puppet-creation style. Most of the non-Muppet characters are human characters, but there are many characters that are animated.
American Sign Language literature is one of the most important shared cultural experiences in the American deaf community. Literary genres initially developed in residential Deaf institutes, such as American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, which is where American Sign Language developed as a language in the early 19th century. There are many genres of ASL literature, such as narratives of personal experience, poetry, cinematographic stories, folktales, translated works, original fiction and stories with handshape constraints. Authors of ASL literature use their body as the text of their work, which is visually read and comprehended by their audience viewers. In the early development of ASL literary genres, the works were generally not analyzed as written texts are, but the increased dissemination of ASL literature on video has led to greater analysis of these genres.
The children's television show Sesame Street, which premiered on public broadcasting television stations in 1969, was the first show of its kind that utilized a detailed and comprehensive educational curriculum, with specific educational goals, in its content. Its goals were garnered from in-house formative research and independent summative evaluations, and its first curriculum was created in a series of five seminars in 1968.
Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration is a 2019 musical television special to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street. Hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the special aired on November 9, 2019, on HBO, followed by a November 17 airing on PBS. It stars the cast and Muppets of Sesame Street, including Kermit the Frog, from the past and present. Many retired cast members and characters reunited on the street for the first time in years since their last appearances. This is the final Sesame Street special to feature long-time Muppet performer Caroll Spinney, who performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for 50 years as well as the cast members Emilio Delgado and Bob McGrath, who played Luis and Bob, respectively, for 45 years.
Gertrude Scott Galloway was an American educator and administrator working with deaf children. She was the first female president of the National Association of the Deaf. She is among the first deaf women to head a school for the deaf in the United States. Galloway was an advocate for deaf women throughout her life.
Troy Michael Kotsur is an American actor. His supporting role in the film CODA (2021) earned him a number of accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics' Choice Movie Award. He is the first deaf actor to win the latter three awards, and first deaf man and second deaf performer overall to win the first.
Gilbert Eastman was an American educator, actor, playwright, author, and television host. He acted in American Sign Language (ASL) plays and wrote many of them. Eastman taught and performed at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), while writing and performing in many of their plays. In 1993, he won an Emmy Award for co-hosting the show Deaf Mosaic.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
