Nancy Becker-Kennedy: The Fearless Factor

by Lori A. Wood

Nancy Becker-Kennedy speaks her mind. This is a good quality if you want to be a truth-telling playwright and actor, like Becker-Kennedy.

“My childhood was messed up,” she confesses. “I was a moody kid. I came from a broken home; my parents divorced when I was 13.”

Hardly the type to avoid confrontation, Nancy was always prepared to fight for what she believed in. “Ever since I could talk, I was always sticking up for people,” she remembers.

In 1969, while studying political science at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, she developed a passion for activism. “I was really politically involved. I did a lot of anti-war organizing. I protested the Vietnam War.” The next year, while she studied English Literature at New York University, Nancy discovered the theater. “I performed in theater a lot,” she says.

The Weight of Water

In 1972, at the age of 20, Nancy visited some friends who lived on a man-made lake in Waukegan, Illinois. A fun day at the lake took a shocking turn. “I was diving on a pier outside of my friend’s house,” she says. “The water was too shallow, and I broke my neck.” The fall resulted in a C5-6 spinal cord impairment (SCI). “I tried to swim to the surface, but nothing moved,” she declares. While unconscious, she was dragged to the pier. Eventually, paramedics arrived, and she regained consciousness. “They sandbagged me, put me in an ambulance, and took me to the hospital.”

Nancy was then sent to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where she spent six months. “I was very depressed,” she remembers. “Off and on for the first couple of months, I had post-traumatic psychosis. I was delirious; I would tell people that they were blue like the sun and red like the ocean.” Nancy was subsequently given Thorazine, an antipsychotic drug. Still, she was depressed, and didn’t talk much. While she wasn’t in any physical pain, Nancy noticed strange sensations coursing through her body. “Your sensation changes,” she explains. “You don’t feel your body from the chest down. It feels kind of like pins and needles.” Despite the numerous physical changes that she had to contend with, the emotional and social adjustments required of a person facing SCI were an especially difficult part of Nancy’s recovery.

“Your whole identity is totally trashed, and you have to start over,” she declares. “You bring all of your prejudices about disability into your accident and I just didn’t think that the life that somebody in a wheelchair could lead was worth living.”

The Unreal World

This perception of limitation made physical therapy difficult. “I was getting good rehab, but I didn’t care enough to do it.” To Nancy, the concept of living with SCI was hard to grasp. “The biggest thing is, you don’t even realize what’s happened. It’s too much to absorb. You’re not even admitting to yourself that your condition is permanent, so you’re not really paying attention to your therapy. It’s a huge assault, and it takes a long time to accept it.”

Taking a Stand

With so many aspects of her physical condition out of her control, Nancy found motivation in another form-activism. “The hospital was having an architectural barriers conference and none of the patients were invited.” Annoyed, Nancy organized them in an attempt to correct this oversight. “I told them that they had to have self- determination over their own lives, and that no one should be making decisions about them without their consent. We managed to [tick] off the head of the rehab hospital.”

Three weeks after being discharged, Nancy went to the University of Illinois-Champaign. “Tim Nugent was a tremendous pioneer there; he started the first wheelchair access program in a college,” she explains. “I have a lot of respect for that.” A disabled Vietnam veteran himself, Nugent led a gentler kind of disabled advocacy group. “They were a very wholesome group of kids who did wheelchair exhibitions, and we were hippie hell-raisers who did sit-ins about the passage of the Rehab Act of 1973. It was kind of a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Nancy was often at odds with the University. “At the time, they had one house where five quadriplegic men lived with attendants, but they didn’t have anything for quadriplegic women. I told the University they had a lot of nerve, boasting about a school that was accessible to quads, but not female quads.” When Nancy decided to continue her education there, a compromise was reached. “They allowed me to live in a graduate student dorm, which had two rooms and an adjoining bathroom. They also hired an attendant for me.” With these accommodations in place, Nancy was free to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English in 1973, and a master’s degree in communications, which she received in 1975.

Though she was committed to fighting for the rights of people with disabilities, she still felt isolated from mainstream society. “The feeling that you’re not totally invited into the emotional life of the community is an ongoing agony,” Nancy says. “You never get used to that.”

Settling In

In 1975, she married Steve Kennedy, a fellow student. Her husband was an ally when it came to finding an accessible place to live. “I was lucky. He used to do all the footwork. If he hadn’t been looking for apartments, I would have been in a lot of trouble. You need somebody able-bodied to scout things out.” Eventually, they settled into a series of accessible apartments in California. “It was very expensive,” she remembers. “They kept raising the rent, and it got to the point where my Social Security check wasn’t enough to cover it.”

At the age of 25, while working at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California, Nancy discovered writing. Since it was hard for her to put paper in a typewriter, she wrote mostly one-page pieces.

In 1981, Nancy was invited to join the playwright’s group of Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum. “I became a serious writer then,” she explains. That same year, she and Steve divorced.

In 1983, Nancy moved into a US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) designed condo in Los Angeles, where she lives to this day, thanks to a financial settlement that she received from the accident. “If you have any kind of settlement, put it down on a house. Get affordable housing and a low mortgage,” she advises.

Funny Girl

Nancy is no stranger to the humorous side of life. “I’ve always had a dark sense of humor,” Nancy admits. This characteristic helped her get acting roles. By 1991, she had appeared on General Hospital and Equal Justice. A year later, she incorporated her experiences with SCI into a comedy routine, which was fabulously received by audiences. “I did really in-your-face stuff, and people went crazy,” she says. “My husband used to try to tie me up,” one of her jokes explains, “and I’d say, ‘Why are you trying to tie me up? Where am I going?’” Three years later, her dark humor attracted the attention of producers at CBS, who cast Nancy in The Louie Show, starring Louie Anderson. She was about to become the first wheelchair user featured as a series regular in a prime time sitcom. “It was a happy time for me,” she recalls.

Strange Luck

In December 1995, a week before The Louie Show was to air, a lump was found in Nancy’s right breast. “All mammograms are not created equal,” she stresses. “It’s hard to get a decent one. The first place I went to for a mammogram wasn’t showing the tumor.” Years earlier, a doctor had found a mass, and insisted that an aspiration of the mass wasn’t necessary. As Nancy found out in 1995, he was wrong. “I had a biopsy, and it showed that it was malignant. I was fortunate, though. I got the very best care,” Nancy declares.

After a girlfriend helped her research doctors, she found Dr. Armando Giuliano in Santa Monica, California. “It’s odd,” she says. “I’m on Medicare and Medicaid, and I got the leading breast cancer surgeon in the city.” Within two days of finding him, she drove to St. John’s Hospital to have a lumpectomy. Afterward, she was given a gentle course of chemotherapy. “It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t really lose any hair, and I never threw up,” she states.

Then, Nancy underwent a sentinel node biopsy. “The doctor only took out three lymph nodes to see if anything had spread.” This fact is pretty remarkable, considering that about forty lymph nodes are removed in the standard procedure. “It’s very important for disabled people to get the sentinel node procedure,” Nancy declares. “Had they done it the standard way, the arm swelling that usually follows would have affected whether I could drive.” Recently, Nancy had her nine-year checkup. “You never want to say anything [about being in remission],” she cautions, “but, after five years, they say you’re in good shape.” Nancy had a fairly easy experience with cancer, but recognizes that cases like hers are, too often, the exception to the rule. “I’ve been extremely lucky. When I have catastrophes, I get the best care.”

On with the Show

In 1996, Nancy penned an autobiographical play called “I Had to Break My Neck to Get Here.” The following year, her mentors at the Mark Taper Forum got her involved with “Theatre West,” a prestigious theater company that’s known for developing plays. “We just hired a director, and we’re getting ready to do a Los Angeles run of it,” she announces.

Of all her accomplishments, Nancy seems proudest of her home. “I have a gorgeous place. I put Formica counters in everywhere. This year, I had my bathroom vanity taken out, and new cabinets put in.” Nancy has one attendant that comes in the mornings during the week, and three that come at night and weekends, but otherwise, she lives independently.

She recognizes that there are positive aspects to living with SCI. “There’s a lot that’s been great about it,” she acknowledges. “You see what you’re capable of, and you have the opportunity to inspire people when they see that, though something rough can happen to them, they can still be effective. I think it makes them see life in a bigger way. Life is beautiful. It really is.”

Lori A. Wood is a frequent contributor to Orbit.