The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice.

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.

I can hear you and I can watch your mouth move, and then I put together the sounds and the visual image and I can understand the words as I integrate the two signals.

During a visit to California, when a friend of my grandmother's told my parents that I must be deaf because I was not responding to sounds, my father was absolutely convinced that I was simply being stubborn.

At some point we have to stop and say, There's Marlee, not, There's the deaf actress.

I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.