From: Mainstream Magazine, February 1993
Story by: Linda Panicola


Art imitates life. Whoever said that never watched a soap opera. Wouldn't it be dandy if the opposite were true? Life imitate art. Then, like the characters on daytime television, when we grew tired of being visually impaired, hearing-impaired or paralyzed, we could just receive the old standard "miracle cure. "Imagine it -the wonder drug has just been flown in by carrier pigeon. The doctor, who is secretly your cousin's long lost grandpa twice removed, injects you with the serum. The music swells, your eyelids flutter and ZAP! Throw in a couple of lambada lessons and you live happily ever after.

Daytime television received a much needed dose of reality when Byron Pierce wheeled into Topp's, the favorite watering hole on the NBC soap, "Another World." We pinched ourselves and watched as Pierce admonished the restaurant owner for not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act! We cheered when the character used the newly installed ramp in the following episode! We swooned when Pierce seduced the desirable and beautiful Marley Hudson! We yawned as he waxed poetic about depositions and contracts with his fellow attorneys! And we sat on the edges of our seats when he took on the local macho stud in tennis!

Surprising but true, week after week, Byron Pierce was breaking new ground as (gasp!) - a regular guy! And that was the point. The reality came to the role through the actor who played Pierce, Mitch Longley. There weren't any standard miracle cures in the life of the character because Longley has been a paraplegic since 1983. A year ago, at the age of 26, he had finally attained a childhood dream, the opportunity to act.

Well, more than a year has passed since he first rolled into Topp's. One full year of batting his soulful brown eyes, chasing gorgeous blondes and wearing designer suits - sounds like the ticket, right? Wrong! Longley has cashed his last steady paycheck and moved on to higher goals.

What kind of man would turn his back on all the glamour? Mitch Longley, that's who. Well on his way to majoring in acting in college, Longley was sidelined by his auto accident. "In 1983, I just didn't see characters with disabilities or disabled actors portraying any roles so I didn't think it was a realistic career choice," he recalls. Elaine Brodey, the administrator for the Performers with Disabilities committee of the Screen Actors Guild, confirms Longley's observations. "In 1980, we had only a handful of members," she says, "Last month we had 75 members at our New York meeting."

So Longley switched his major to communications and kept acting as a dream. "I gained maturity and waited for society to change a bit," he says. By 1986, the climate had changed somewhat and Longley was tapped to film a commercial for the Neurofibromatosis Foundation. But the networks that viewed the commercial requested affidavits to insure that he was truly a paraplegic. "They had just passed a truth in advertising law," he explains. "In a sense, they were aware of the rights of the disabled; the right to be represented truthfully. It was also a compliment because I didn't fit whatever preconceived notion they held of a disabled man."

Longley spent his remaining years at Northeastern University honing his craft and speaking at area colleges about disabilities. Compelled to shatter the myths about the sexuality of the disabled person, he eventually found himself blushing before an audience composed entirely of women at an all-girls school. "I asked the group if any of them had ever dated or had feelings for a person with a disability," he explains. "A woman stood up in the back row and said, 'I never dated a man in a wheelchair but I'm definitely having feelings for one right now!'" Although he had unwittingly set himself up for a compliment, the attitude the woman displayed was exactly the point. "To her, the wheelchair was no big deal."

Another person who considered the wheelchair not a big deal was Ralph Lauren, the famous clothing designer. In 1991, Bruce Weber photographed Longley for the designer's ad campaign. Lauren chose his photo without knowing that Longley used a wheelchair. When a group inquired about bestowing a certificate on the company for using a disabled model, they found that Lauren was in the business of selling clothes, not sending messages. According to Longley, that was the best possible outcome. "It was a strong, silent statement of equality," he says. "In the modeling industry, a major campaign is a coveted assignment."


Although he doesn't consider modeling a career, Longley appeared in other projects for both Weber and Lauren. The first Lauren ad was the catalyst for Longley's television acting debut. Naturally several people claim that they discovered him, but it was Donna Swajeski, head writer for "Another World" who created the character of Byron Pierce. "I saw his picture and thought he had incredible looks," she explains. "When our casting director said that he was a paraplegic, I wanted to meet him." Swajeski considers herself part of a "new breed of writers that deal with topical issues like AIDS, homosexuality, plastic surgery - things you don't find on conventional soaps."

When the writer met the actor, she asked for Longley's input to make the character very realistic. He recalls, "I shared some encounters that Byron might run into and what his attitude might be towards a given situation. The basic storyline showed a down to business guy, a lawyer, who just practiced his profession. Like with Ralph Lauren, the disability was not the focus and that was nice." Swajeski agrees, "I operated on the premise that he was one of my least handicapped' characters. I wanted to show a man who was absolutely okay with the physical but in his struggle to become flawless, he's lost his humanity and stunted his emotional growth. His trouble is not with his legs, it's with his heart."

In traditional soap opera fashion, Byron is redeemed through love. Swajeski created a love triangle that pitted Pierce against Dennis Wheeler, the resident hunk. The writer explains, "Dennis totally lives for his muscles, brawn and sexuality. I wondered what it would be like for him to compete with a man in a wheelchair."

Throughout the competition for Marley's affection, Longley had to act in his first love scenes. Originally, he was apprehensive about loosening his tie. "Sex on the soaps can be gratuitous," he explains. "There's a uniqueness to an actor with a disability because our culture hasn't seen it. A non-disabled actor can portray a disabled character in a love scene but the audience knows it's not real - the impact is less." According to Chris Bruno, the actor who plays Dennis Wheeler, Longley "actually shined in his love scenes. He's come a long way with his acting."

And while the actors are rivals on camera, they are good friends off camera. "About the time that I became friendly with Mitch," Bruno recalls, "I blew my knee out in a skiing accident. I play a lot of sports and to an athlete like me, the injury could've been a major ordeal ... but I just rolled with it. Through Mitch, I realized that I won't ever play sports the way I used to but now I know that I can adapt." Bruno commends the people on "Another World" for taking a chance on Longley and his story line. "Mitch had limited acting experience," he points out. "The producers thought Mitch could learn something, the audience could learn something and they definitely achieved that."

One look at Longley's fan mail and you'd know that he's been well received. Recently, the viewers voted him "Best Newcomer" in a popular soap opera magazine poll. People wrote to him expressing a change in attitude toward people with disabilities. One fan expressed it by saying "I'm more in tune with disability issues, more open to reaching a hand out instead of turning my head as our society is so inclined to do.