‘Life Goes On’ actress dies at 53

Andrea Fay Friedman, one of the first performers with Down syndrome to be featured on TV, has died at age 53. 

The cause was complications due to Alzheimer’s, her father, Hal Friedman, told the New York Times. He also said that she hadn’t been able to speak for the past year, which is not uncommon when people with Down syndrome have Alzheimer’s. 

Her father told the outlet that she called Down syndrome her “up syndrome.” 

After growing up in Santa Monica and studying acting at Santa Monica College, Friedman had her breakout role as Amanda Swanson on the ABC show “Life Goes On,” which aired from 1989 to 1993. 

The show followed the Thatcher family’s life in a Chicago suburb, and was notable for being the first show to feature a major character with Down syndrome — Corky, played by Chris Burke (an actor who also has the condition). Amanda Swanson was Corky’s girlfriend and later wife, appearing in Seasons 3 and 4. 

Her father told the Times that she was originally going to appear in just one episode, but, “She did such a great job that they made her a regular on the show.” 

Friedman also voiced a character with Down syndrome on “Family Guy,” in “Extra Large Medium,” a Season 8 episode that originally aired on Feb. 14, 2010. The episode mocked then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, which led to a verbal scuffle between the pol and the actress. 

In the episode, Friedman’s character, Ellen, dates Chris (Seth Green). Ellen tells him over dinner that her mother is “the former governor of Alaska.”

At the time, Palin, whose son Trig has Down syndrome, slammed the episode, saying that the show “really isn’t funny” and was the work of “cruel, cold-hearted people.”

Friedman clapped back at Palin, in an email to the New York Times. She wrote Palin “does not have a sense of humor” and that “I think the word is ‘sarcasm.’

“In my family we think laughing is good,” Friedman said. “My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.”

She also worked with students with intellectual disabilities at UCLA, and appeared in “Law & Order: SVU,” “ER,” “Baywatch” and “7th Heaven.”

Her last project before her death was a 2019 movie called “Carol of the Bells,” about a man searching for his birth mother, who he later learns has Down syndrome. 

In a 2019 interview with Ability Magazine, Friedman said about the “R” word, “I don’t really like it at all. It really affected me in many ways, because I’ve been teased a lot. I’ve been teased with that from elementary school, high school, and I didn’t like it. I was going to stand up for myself, but I didn’t have the courage.”

She is survived by her father, who is a lawyer; her sister, Katherine Holland; her brother-in-law, Grant Holland; and her nephews, Lawson and Andrew Holland.