Andrea Fay Friedman, built breakthrough acting career

Andrea Fay Friedman, an actress who starred in the groundbreaking television series “Life Goes On,” died on Sunday in her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 53.

She died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, according to her father, Hal Friedman. He said that she had not been able to speak for the past year because of the disease, which is common in people with Down syndrome who are over 50.

Ms. Friedman was known for her portrayals of people with developmental disabilities. She called her Down syndrome her “up syndrome,” Hal Friedman said in a phone interview.

Ms. Friedman was born on June 1, 1970, in Santa Monica. After graduating from West Los Angeles Baptist High School, she studied acting and philosophy at Santa Monica College for two years.

Her breakthrough in acting came in 1992 on the TV drama “Life Goes On,” in which she played Amanda Swanson, the girlfriend and later wife of the main character Charles “Corky” Thatcher, who also had Down syndrome. She played the character for two seasons.

Hal Friedman said that she got involved in the show while working at a child-care center during her college years. A parent there was writing the music for “Life Goes On,” he said, and suggested she pitch her ideas to the writers.

She eventually convinced the producers to include another character who had Down syndrome, Hal Friedman said. 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,” he said.

She would later occasionally appear in other hit shows, like “Baywatch,” “ER,” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”

In 2010, she had a “dispute” with Sarah Palin, the former Republican governor of Alaska and 2018 vice presidential nominee, Hal Friedman said.

In an episode of “Family Guy,” Ms. Friedman voiced a girl with Down syndrome named Ellen, who dates the teenage character Chris. Ellen tells him over dinner that her mother is “the former governor of Alaska.”

Palin, whose son Trig has Down syndrome, said that the show “really isn’t funny” and was the work of “cruel, coldhearted people.”

Ms. Friedman wrote in an email to The New York Times at the time that Palin “does not have a sense of humor,” adding, “I think the word is ‘sarcasm.’”

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

Her final appearance on screen was in the 2019 holiday drama “Carol of the Bells,” in which a man searches for his biological mother, played by Ms. Friedman, and learns she is developmentally disabled.

Ms. Friedman also worked with students with intellectual disabilities through a program at UCLA.

She leaves her sister, Katherine Holland, her brother-in-law, Grant Holland, her two nephews, Lawson and Andrew Holland, and her father, an entertainment industry lawyer. Her mother, Marjorie Jean Lawson, died about 10 years ago, Hal Friedman said.

‘In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.’ MS. FRIEDMAN