13 Actors Whose Real-Life Diagnoses Became TV Storylines
Michael J. Fox is the latest actor to play a character with his real-life diagnosis on TV. The Spin City star reunited with Bill Lawrence on Shrinking Season 3, playing a character connected to Harrison Ford‘s Paul, whose Parkinson’s disease symptoms are progressing.
Previously, The Sopranos alum Jamie-Lynn Sigler came to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital for a guest role as Laura Kaplan on Grey’s Anatomy. The character is a doctor who is living with Multiple Sclerosis. The role was designed with the actress in mind, and it reflects her real life, as she has been open about her experiences living with the autoimmune disease.
Also, Eric Dane previously returned to TV for a role where art imitated life, as his character on Brilliant Minds had ALS, just as Dane does.
These three are far from the only TV actors whose real-life medical conditions became character traits, too.
In the photo gallery below, see a four-decade chronology of TV characters’ conditions mirroring those of their portrayers.
MacGyver’s Dana Elcar
After developing glaucoma, Elcar told MacGyver producers in 1985 he was going blind, a condition they incorporated into boss Pete Thornton’s storyline. “The fact that you are losing your eyesight does not mean you have forgotten how to act,” they told him, as the actor recalled in a 1991 National Federation of the Blind speech, per the Los Angeles Times.
The Waltons’ Ellen Corby
Corby suffered a stroke in 1976, while she was playing grandma Esther Walton on The Waltons. So the writers wrote the stroke and resulting aphasia into the show. “[CBS] thought she would not be up to the job, and boy were they wrong,” costar John Dayton said during a 2021 Stars in the House cast reunion.
One Life to Live’s Michael Zaslow
In 1998, Zaslow returned to the role of OLTL’s composer David Renaldi, who had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diagnosis, as had the actor. “I am so excited to be bringing ALS to the public,” he told the Associated Press at the time. “I and my family and extended family have ways to raise this disease to eye level.”
Sports Night’s Robert Guillaume
Guillaume suffered a stroke in 1999 on his way to film scenes as editor Isaac Jaffe in Sports Night. And creator Aaron Sorkin “liked the idea of having my character suffer a stroke as well, which allowed me to return to the show and not have to pretend I hadn’t had a stroke,” the actor told Brain & Life in 2009.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent’s Jamey Sheridan
In a throwaway exchange in a 2005 episode of Criminal Intent, Det. Bobby Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) asks Sheridan’s Capt. Jimmy Deakins if the latter character’s eye patch helps with his Bell’s palsy symptoms. The actor was dealing with a bout of Bell’s palsy in real life, too, per the Chicago Tribune.
Desperate Housewives’ Kathryn Joosten
When Joosten’s lung cancer returned in 2009, Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry gave her character, Karen McCluskey, the same illness. “I said to her, ‘Why don’t we work your lung cancer into the show? Because then you can take your oxygen tank and have it with you on screen,’” he told People in 2024.
And Just Like That…’s David Eigenberg
The hearing loss Miranda’s husband, Steve, experiences on AJLT was inspired by Eigenberg’s. “When [showrunner] Michael Patrick [King] reconnected with David Eigenberg about the show, the very first thing that David said was, ‘I got hearing aids.’ It was literally what he led with,” writer Elisa Zuritsky told Vanity Fair.
Sirens’ Lauren Weedman
Psych and Percy Jackson's Timothy Omundson
Omundson suffered a stroke in 2017. The second Psych movie, Lassie Come Home, had Omundson’s character, Police Chief Carlton Lassiter, have a stroke as well and depicted his recovery.
Omundson played the Greek god Hephaestus in Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 1. Hephaestus has a physical disability in Greek mythology, as does the character in Rick Riordan’s novels and the Disney+ TV adaptation, so Omundson’s character had a cane as well. Omundson uses mobility aids following his stroke as well.
Stranger Things's Gaten Matarazzo
Matarazzo has cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD), a condition that affects bone and teeth development. The Duffer Brothers added CCD into Dustin Henderson’s storyline in Season 1 after Matarazzo was cast in the role.
Brilliant Minds’ Eric Dane
In an episode of Brilliant Minds Season 2, Dane played a firefighter who struggled to share his diagnosis with his family. The episode aired months after Dane went public with his ALS diagnosis. Read up on how the show creator crafted the role with Dane right here.
Grey's Anatomy's Jamie-Lynn Sigler
The Sopranos favorite Jamie-Lynn Sigler joined Grey’s Anatomy for its January 15 episode, starring as a doctor with multiple sclerosis. Sigler has, in real life, been open about her own diagnosis with the autoimmune disorder since 2016.
The Michael J. Fox Show and Shrinking’s Michael J. Fox
During his life post-Parkinson’s diagnosis, Fox returned to TV in a 2013 sitcom in which Mike Henry, his news anchor character, also has Parkinson’s. “I didn’t give myself credit for being capable of doing [a regular series]. And it’s been great,” he told CNN.
Fox also plays a character with Parkinson’s disease in Shrinking Season 3. He appeared in the January 28 premiere in a scene with Ford’s Paul, in which they cross paths at a doctor’s office. Fox, a close friend of co-creator Bill Lawrence’s, has also been instrumental in providing information about the emotional experience of having the disease throughout Shrinking‘s three seasons, Jason Segel told TV Insider.
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