Dana Plato(1964-1999)
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday,
November 7, 1964. Her first excursion into the film world occurred when
she was 11 in the television film
Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975).
Dana never made an impact on the TV screen until she landed the role
of Kimberly Drummond in the TV hit sitcom
Diff'rent Strokes (1978)
from 1978-1986. After the series ended, Dana had difficulty finding more
acting work. Sometimes she would act in a made-for-TV movie or a low-
budget silver-screen film. She was married for Lanny Lambert for seven
years and they had a son. She was arrested in 1991 for robbing a Las Vegas
video store and placed on probation; the next year she was arrested again,
this time for forging a Valium prescription. She had just finished an
interview with Howard Stern in the spring of 1999 when she
and her fiancé, Robert Menchaca, were headed back to California. She
hoped the interview would revive her stalled career. They stopped at
his parents' house in Moore, Oklahoma for a Mother's-Day-weekend
visit; on Saturday, May 8, 1999, Dana died of what appeared to be an
accidental overdose of the painkiller "Loritab". On May 21, a coroner's
inquest ruled her death a suicide because of the large amount of drugs
in her body and her history of past suicide attempts. Dana Plato was
34 years old.
