Today we’d like to introduce you to Eileen Grubba. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Eileen narrowly survived an immune system attack on her spine caused by a vaccine that left her with a C1 – C4 spinal injury. She spent years of her childhood in a wheelchair, and every year since, trying to stay on her feet, enduring surgeries throughout her entire adult life. She is also a cancer survivor. Coming into the entertainment industry with a visible mobility disability, Eileen soon learned she would have to change the industry if she wanted to work in it, so she did. She continues to be one of the leading advocates for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the entertainment industry and worldwide.
Please tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others.
Eileen Grubba is an award-winning actress, writer, and producer. She is a member of the Television Academy, a lifetime member of The Actors Studio, and Brand Ambassador for Global Disability Inclusion. Her TV appearances include HBO’s Watchmen, CBS’s CSI: Vegas, SWAT, ALL Rise, Criminal Minds, NBC’s New Amsterdam, This Is Us, Game Of Silence, Netflix’s The Politician, ABC’s Stumptown, FX’s Sons of Anarchy, Bones, Fear The Walking Dead, HBO’s Hung & Enlightened, Benched, Instant Mom, CSI: Miami, The Mentalist, Cold Case, Nip/Tuck, The Closer, Monk and more. She has won over a dozen Best Actress awards. She won a $100,000 production package for a feature film in a pitch competition in 2021. She was honored with the WeSpark Award at Idyllwild Film Festival 2020 for her social impact on the entertainment industry. And was the winner of the Mary Austin Excellence in Screenwriting Awards in 2019 and 2020, the Mary Austin Excellence in Producing Award in 2021, and more than 50 international awards for her disability-inclusive short films. She is an advocate for hiring performers with disabilities in film, television, and advertising and serves on the SAG/AFTRA National PWD Committee. She was selected for the 2020 CBS Leadership Pipeline for directing. She is a national public speaker for events supporting challenged patients, disability inclusion, eradicating bullying, and empowering women. In 2019 she went through training at the FBI’s Citizen Academy for community leaders and was the keynote speaker for their graduation. She is also a staff writer on an animated series for a major toy brand and has a feature film in development with Roserock Films.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
At five years old, I faced the unimaginable, something that most people fear more than death: paralysis. A bad vaccine nearly killed me. My parents were told I wouldn’t survive, then suggested I’d never walk again. It wasn’t the physical changes that were the most distressing for me. It was how everyone else changed. How people looked at me and treated me changed in the blink of an eye. I became an outcast overnight. I’m lucky I had a strong mother, unconditionally loving and wise. She taught me tools that carried me through life. My father was also strong and independent and bucked the status quo. I learned a lot from watching them navigate people, financial ruin, and eight children, including me, the disabled. They expected as much from me as any of their healthy, athletic, brilliant children, and I am forever grateful.
This child did not understand her new limitations and therefore didn’t accept them. While in my wheelchair, I became an award-winning artist, but I wanted to be a cheerleader and set a goal to do just that. I forced weight onto my little legs daily, trying to make them work. Eventually, I was able to stand, which baffled doctors. They said it was the closest thing to a miracle they had ever seen.
I still had neurological damage from the spinal cord injury and fallen bones from critical growing years spent paralyzed. By 14, the surgeries began and didn’t stop for more than three decades. Through those years, I fought the cancer that killed my father and the genetic cancer syndrome that killed my mother. Despite it all, I persevered because my childhood experience taught me to do that. I persisted, from wheelchair to walker to walking, and soon became captain of my cheerleading team. I had dreams and a life to live, and nothing was going to stop me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.EileenGrubba.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eileengrubba/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EileenGrubbaOfficialPage
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/EileenGrubba
- Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0344190/
Image Credits
Photographer Kevin R. Sheffield Photo Credit ©: Kevin R. Sheffield, K Sheffield Photography – took the main profile photo with the red background and me laughing. Credits to Ability Magazine
