Dana Plato

Haunted by her image as the perfect television sitcom daughter, Dana Plato saw her once promising career devolve into B-grade-turned-blue movies as she endured numerous run-ins with the law before succumbing to a drug overdose at the young age of 34 as she was reportedly on the verge of a would-be comeback. The beautiful, girl-next-door Plato traveled the all-too-familiar path of a child star, becoming a minor journeyman child star in sundry 1970s TV projects and ads before winning her ostensible breakthrough role of the preppy Park Avenue older sister to two adopted African-American boys on one of the signature programs of the 1970s and early 1980s, "Diff'rent Strokes" (NBC/ABC, 1978-1986). But the weight of her early fame and glaring lack of prospects in its wake would lead to a roller-coaster arc of alcohol and drug abuse, the nadir of which she would reach with her infamous robbery of a Las Vegas video store while wielding a pellet gun. Beset by further bouts with the law and rehab, she nevertheless managed to marginally resume her career in low-rent thrillers and sci-fi films, acceding to increasingly and exploitatively risqué fare, which culminated with a soft-core porn outing in which she famously did same-sex love scenes. Mere days after a notorious appearance on Howard Stern's radio show in May 1999 - in which she dubiously claimed to be 10-years sober - Plato died in her RV trailer in rural Oklahoma, with authorities later attributing the death to a suicidal drug overdose. The onetime promising and vibrant actress' death would only serve to cement a growing urban legend of an existing curse on the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes," which saw all three child actors suffer tragic falls from grace.