Paraplegic Actors or TV Personalities

[roadman65]

If anyone remembers the Late Bill Cullin, the former game show host, was actually paralyzed below the waist.  The production team of all his shows, propped him behind a podium to help him stand. Unlike other game show hosts who walked around the stage, Cullen remained standing in one spot and had no grand entrance at the beginning of the show.


Howard McNair ( Floyd the Barber on Andy Griffith) was paralyzed later in the shows run as in Seasons 6 & 7 of the show you never saw Floyd walk on the set. He was always featured standing ( behind the barber chair) or sitting down.  That was to allow McNair to be part of the show and not have to write Floyd as crippled in the show.

Others out there who were paralyzed below the waist and hidden from the audience?

[abefroman329]

Not many - I would think the schedule and demands of appearing in a film or TV show would not work well for some paraplegic people.

Teddy Pendergrass and Curtis Mayfield were both paralyzed in accidents and continued to record music after their accidents.

[Scott5114]

If anyone remembers the Late Bill Cullin, the former game show host, was actually paralyzed below the waist.  The production team of all his shows, propped him behind a podium to help him stand. Unlike other game show hosts who walked around the stage, Cullen remained standing in one spot and had no grand entrance at the beginning of the show.

This is the reason why Cullen wasn't invited to host The New Price Is Right in 1972. Cullen had previously hosted the 1950s—1960s version of The Price Is Right, which had a totally different format (it was somewhat similar to the Contestant's Row segment of the current show, but took place in a number of rounds rather than each contestant giving one bid). The new format was to have a variety of games, which required them to be placed in different parts of the set, which meant that Cullen couldn't do it. The job ended up going to the host of Truth or Consequences, Bob Barker.

[vdeane]

Kenneth Mitchell played three Klingons on Star Trek: Discovery before being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.  In season 3 three the writers created a character that utilized a hoverchair, Aurellio, so that he could continue with the show in that season.

[roadman65]

If anyone remembers the Late Bill Cullin, the former game show host, was actually paralyzed below the waist.  The production team of all his shows, propped him behind a podium to help him stand. Unlike other game show hosts who walked around the stage, Cullen remained standing in one spot and had no grand entrance at the beginning of the show.

This is the reason why Cullen wasn't invited to host The New Price Is Right in 1972. Cullen had previously hosted the 1950s–1960s version of The Price Is Right, which had a totally different format (it was somewhat similar to the Contestant's Row segment of the current show, but took place in a number of rounds rather than each contestant giving one bid). The new format was to have a variety of games, which required them to be placed in different parts of the set, which meant that Cullen couldn't do it. The job ended up going to the host of Truth or Consequences, Bob Barker.

Then the rest is history. Barker became the longest running game show host in television history.  Of course now his successor, Drew Carey, is been doing it for a while, but still not as long though.  However, the move from comedy to host ended his typecasting as previously people thought of him as his character on his ABC sitcom.

Another person that became to ill to stand was Jim Davis on Dallas.  In the end of his acting on Dallas, he had to be filmed seated. In his final ever filmed scene, you’ve seen him inside a limousine because his cancer he had got him real bad to even stand.  They shot him inside the limo from long side the vehicle.

[In_Correct]

To type words about Bill Cullen could never walk is misleading.

After The Price Is Right be came " New " , Bill Cullen largely worked for Bob Stewart. He can be seen walking on The 25,000 Pyramid. However, his entrance was shorter. And he sat down at his desk. He also hosted Chain Reaction for six months. Despite being the only person with a chair, he walked to the Bonus Round, usually standing with out leaning. A very obvious game show that he sat down all the time is on The Joker's Wild. Even so, he was able to handle problems with any technical difficulties or any contestant, angry ... or happy, and did not ban hugs such as the over rated Pat Sajak who called Law Enforcement on a Contestant. Also, Bill Cullen could host a talk show easily. The closest example of a talk show is The Love Experts not to be confused with Love Connection.

I wished that The Joker's Wild did the same thing for Bill that he did on The Love Experts. Both game shows have Audience Participation. The Joker's Wild brought two peoples on stage and a viewer from home. Bill Cullen ought to have simply had his seat turned to face the audience as they did for him on The Love Experts.

[Road Hog]

Raymond Burr (late of Perry Mason) played a wheelchair-bound character on "Ironside" for 8 seasons but was fully ambulatory.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Ricardo Montalban was injured in a horse riding accident during filming in the 1990s, which progressed to losing the use of his legs and he used a wheelchair in some of his final appearances like Spy Kids where he played the grandfather.

[ErmineNotyours]

Stephen Tobolowskys' last appearance on Heroes happened after he hurt himself falling off a horse, so they removed his braces and had him slowly turning in an office chair, being careful not to reinjure him.  He made a full recovery.

[SectorZ]

Can we go a little beyond paraplegic to quadriplegic?

Christopher Reeve starred in a made-for-TV reboot of Rear Window in 1998 a few years after his paralysis from the horse accident. I believe he was in an episode of Smallville as well close to his death.

[vegas1962]

If anyone remembers the Late Bill Cullin, the former game show host, was actually paralyzed below the waist.  The production team of all his shows, propped him behind a podium to help him stand. Unlike other game show hosts who walked around the stage, Cullen remained standing in one spot and had no grand entrance at the beginning of the show.

This is the reason why Cullen wasn't invited to host The New Price Is Right in 1972. Cullen had previously hosted the 1950s—1960s version of The Price Is Right, which had a totally different format (it was somewhat similar to the Contestant's Row segment of the current show, but took place in a number of rounds rather than each contestant giving one bid). The new format was to have a variety of games, which required them to be placed in different parts of the set, which meant that Cullen couldn't do it. The job ended up going to the host of Truth or Consequences, Bob Barker.

To be more precise, Cullen suffered from polio in childhood, which left his leg muscles weakened and deteriorating and gave him a pronounced limp, but he was never "paralyzed from the waist down."  Directors knew this and took great effort to limit his walking, or at least to avoid showing him walking on camera, in order to spare him the embarrassment of national audiences seeing his handicap.  The only occasions where Cullen was seen walking on camera were during his hosting stint on the syndicated "Pyramid" or when he was introduced as a panelist on "What's My Line" or "To Tell the Truth," which he did often.  The majority of his hosting gigs had him sitting at his podium onstage even at the very opening.

Scott5114 is correct in that this is how Cullen lost out on the gig to host The New Price is Right in 1972; the job would have required an immense amount of walking and standing that Cullen couldn't handle.  What's interesting about that is Bob Barker wasn't the first choice to be the host, either.  When show producer Goodson-Todman made their pitch film for CBS, the game descriptions and game play were demonstrated by Dennis James, who was G-T's preferred host.  But CBS didn't want James, and insisted on a different host.  CBS wanted Barker, who initially didn't want to give up "Truth or Consequences" in order to become a daytime host.  CBS eventually got its wish, and Dennis James got the consolation prize of hosting the first year of the syndicated "nighttime" TPiR, followed by Tom Kennedy and eventually Barker.

[Scott5114]

I think for the Nighttime Price Is Right it was James, then Barker, then it went off the air for a bit, then came back with Tom Kennedy in the 80s.

Having seen some Dennis James episodes, going with Barker was the right choice. His persona felt like it was a bit too out there for Price. Barker was Barker from Day 1. Tom Kennedy did an excellent job like he did with every show he hosted.

Total aside here for those who like numbering systems... Price is Right episodes are numbered with a four digit numbering scheme where the first three digits are a week number, then the fourth is the show number within that week. Then there is a letter suffix, originally D for daytime or N for nighttime. So the "first episode" of Price is Right was 0011D, then 0012D ... 0015D, then next week was 0021D, 0022D... This was considered to be sufficient because no game show had ever been on the air for a thousand weeks. Until...that happened with Price in the early 90s. They reset the numbers and changed the letter suffix to "K" (for "thousand")–being that there was no nighttime show anymore it wasn't needed to establish day or night any longer. This year, they ran out of K numbers, so 9992K (short week) will be followed by 0011L.

[skluth]

If anyone remembers the Late Bill Cullin, the former game show host, was actually paralyzed below the waist.  The production team of all his shows, propped him behind a podium to help him stand. Unlike other game show hosts who walked around the stage, Cullen remained standing in one spot and had no grand entrance at the beginning of the show.

This is the reason why Cullen wasn't invited to host The New Price Is Right in 1972. Cullen had previously hosted the 1950s—1960s version of The Price Is Right, which had a totally different format (it was somewhat similar to the Contestant's Row segment of the current show, but took place in a number of rounds rather than each contestant giving one bid). The new format was to have a variety of games, which required them to be placed in different parts of the set, which meant that Cullen couldn't do it. The job ended up going to the host of Truth or Consequences, Bob Barker.

To be more precise, Cullen suffered from polio in childhood, which left his leg muscles weakened and deteriorating and gave him a pronounced limp, but he was never "paralyzed from the waist down."  Directors knew this and took great effort to limit his walking, or at least to avoid showing him walking on camera, in order to spare him the embarrassment of national audiences seeing his handicap.  The only occasions where Cullen was seen walking on camera were during his hosting stint on the syndicated "Pyramid" or when he was introduced as a panelist on "What's My Line" or "To Tell the Truth," which he did often.  The majority of his hosting gigs had him sitting at his podium onstage even at the very opening.

I had no idea about Cullen. I guess it's much like FDR where great lengths were taken to avoid showing him as anything but healthy after FDR's own polio bout (and missed initial diagnosis) in the early 1920s.

[Scott5114]

I had no idea about Cullen. I guess it's much like FDR where great lengths were taken to avoid showing him as anything but healthy after FDR's own polio bout (and missed initial diagnosis) in the early 1920s.

It was a different era when FDR was active. Politicians could basically appear how and whenever they wanted and the world just kind of had to adapt to that. There were a couple of decades in the late 19th century where it was common to mount a "front-porch campaign", where a Presidential candidate would simply give speeches from their front porch and not travel the country at all. (One notable example was William McKinley, who chose a front-porch campaign style because his wife was chronically ill and he wanted to stay nearby her.)

These days, politicians that try to do something similar are attacked by their opponents. (I have a couple of examples in mind, including one during the 2022 cycle, but I am not going to name names in order to comply with forum rules.)

[abefroman329]

I guess it's much like FDR where great lengths were taken to avoid showing him as anything but healthy after FDR's own polio bout (and missed initial diagnosis) in the early 1920s.

Same with JFK and Addison's disease - in fact, there seems to be a lot of debate over how long he could have expected to live if he hadn't been assassinated, or how long he'd be able to hide his health issues from the cameras.