Geraldine Ann "Geri" Jewell (born September 13, 1956) is an American actress noted for roles on the 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life and the mid 2000s western Deadwood.

Biography

Her autobiography I'm Walking as Straight as I Can was published in 2011 by ECW Press. The title refers to the facts that she has cerebral palsy and is a lesbian.

Jewell's original autobiography, Geri, published in 1984, was a way for readers to learn more about her personal and professional life, even though her personal life was hanging by a thread at the time.




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It did help children get comfortable dealing with a person who has a disability, and taught them the value of a good sense of humor, so I’m not going to knock the whole book. But it was such lighthearted fluff given that I was struggling so much at the time. Like I said, I had a manager who was a crook. People in my life were manipulating me and taking advantage of me. Then The Facts of Life did not renew my contract. Years later, they offered me one episode during the fifth season, and my new manager, Richard Lippin, who was trying to fix all the previous manager’s mistakes, turned it down. He felt that after everything that I’d done for Facts, it was a slap in the face that they would only offer me one show. If I had had it my way, I would have accepted it anyway. But I don’t blame him, because he was right. The problem was that he thought I was indispensable, and they didn’t. He figured that they would come back with something better. And—oops!—they never did. He told me not to worry about it, that I was going to find other work because I was very talented, and I was the first person with a disability to break ground in a series.

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