American actress who was notable for having played the role of Kimberly Drummond on the U.S. television sitcom Diff’rent Strokes from 1978 to 1986. After leaving the cast of Diff’rent Strokes, Plato attempted to establish herself as a working actress, with mixed success: she worked sporadically in made-for-TV movies and in independent films, and did voice-over work.
During her years on Diff’rent Strokes, Plato struggled with drug and alcohol problems. She admitted to drinking alcohol, and using cannabis and cocaine, and she suffered an overdose of diazepam when she was 14.
Plato married her boyfriend, rock guitarist Lanny Lambert on 24 April 1984, and their only child, Tyler Edward Lambert, was born on 2 July 1984.
After leaving Diff’rent Strokes, Plato attempted to establish herself as a serious actress but found it difficult to achieve success outside of her sitcom career. She had breast implants and modelled for a June 1989 Playboy pictorial, but her career remained in stagnation, and she took roles in such B-movies as Bikini Beach Race (1989) and Lethal Cowboy (1992).
During her March 1990 divorce, Plato lost custody of her son to Lambert and was given visitation rights. She moved to Las Vegas, where she struggled with poverty and unemployment. At one point she worked at a dry-cleaning store, where customers reported being impressed by her lack of airs.
On 28 February 1991, Plato entered a video store, produced a pellet gun, and demanded the money in the cash register. The clerk gave her $164. Plato was arrested. Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton posted her $13,000 bail, and Plato was given five years’ probation.
In 1992, Plato was one of the first celebrities to star in a video game. The game, Night Trap, was not a great success (the majority of the game’s video content was actually filmed in 1987 then shelved), but is considered a pioneering title because it was the first game to use live actors, specifically a well-known personality.
Toward the end of her career, Plato chose roles that could be considered erotic, softcore pornography. She appeared nude in Prime Suspect (1989) and Compelling Evidence (1995), and in the softcore erotic drama Different Strokes: The Story of Jack and Jill…and Jill (1998), whose title was changed after filming in order to tie it to Plato’s past. Following her appearance in the film, in the same year, Plato appeared in a cover story of the lesbian lifestyle magazine Girlfriends, in which she came out as a lesbian, although she later recanted.
At the age of 34, after years of struggling with poverty and substance abuse, Plato died in Moore, Oklahoma on 8 May 1999 from an overdose of prescription drugs (the painkiller Lortab and the muscle-relaxant Soma). Her death was eventually ruled a suicide.
Eleven years after Plato’s death, on 6 May 2010, her son Tyler Lambert died at the age of 25 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He had reportedly been experimenting with drugs and alcohol, just as Plato herself did.
Link to Wikipedia biography