Dana Plato

Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood California on Saturday November 7 1964 Dana made an impact on the TV screen when she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond in the TV hit sitcom Diffrent Strokes 1978 from 19781986 After the series ended Dana had difficulty finding more acting work Sometimes she would act in a madeforTV movie or a low budget silverscreen film She was married for Lanny Lambert for seven years and they had a son Plato 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 MothersDayweekend visit on Saturday May 8 1999 Dana died of what appeared to be an accidental overdose of the painkiller Loritab On May 21 a coroners inquest ruled her death a suicide because of the large amount of drugs in her body and her history of past suicide attempts She was 34 years old