This Hero Is Paving the Way for People With Disabilities | Becky Jackson Curran
In this episode of My Hero 360, host Kerri Fitzgerald sits down with Becky Jackson Curran who was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of short-limbed dwarfism. Born into a supportive average-height family, Becky had the tenacity to overcome countless challenges and setbacks, from grueling surgeries to feeling different from others. Becky also shares her career journey in the film industry where she sought to challenge the way little people are perceived in society. After feeling like her impact wasn’t big enough, Becky branched out on her to continue her mission of increasing the visibility of people with dwarfism and other disabilities and improving the treatment and acceptance of people who are perceived as “different.”
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Becky Jackson Curran, welcome to My Hero 360.
Becky Jackson Curran:
Thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
We’re excited to have you and to talk about your story. You were born with achondroplasia, which is the most common type of short-limbed dwarfism. Can you talk a little bit more about achondroplasia just for listeners who are not familiar with the condition?
Becky Jackson Curran:
I hope I get this right, but achondroplasia is formed by a missing piece of the chromosome FGFR3; 80% of cases are from families who have no history of dwarfism. It’s something that happens when 2 parents are making a baby. That includes my parents. They’re average height; my dad is actually 6’4″.
They didn’t know what to expect when I had the diagnosis. The only reason they found out about my diagnosis as soon as they did, which was when we were at the hospital where I was born, was because there was 1 physician in the hospital, not in the delivery room, but in the hospital who had seen another baby born there.
The reason this is so common is that there are only 65,000 people with dwarfism in the United States. Achondroplasia being the most common means that a majority of those 65,000 are achondroplasia, but there’s still over 400 types of dwarfism. I feel blessed that I was born with the most common form of dwarfism because it also means that there’s more information compared to the other 399-plus forms.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Absolutely. As you mentioned, your parents and also your sister are of normal height. Growing up, you underwent, I think, 8 surgeries just when you were younger and obviously dealt with challenges in both you and your family learning how to be able to adapt to what you were living with. Walk us through that. What was that like growing up for you and for your family?
Becky Jackson Curran:
I think it almost feels like it’s something that we push aside in the dwarfism community, that we do have medical complications and that there are surgeries that could happen throughout our lives because we are focused so much on wanting society to accept us as we are. The reality is I’ve had several surgeries, and the first one was when I was 3 years old. I had bowed legs. It was impacting the alignment of my body. The surgeon had recommended that we take the bone out of my bowed legs in order to get them to grow in a straight way. Then when I was 13, I had bone taken out of my pelvis. Apparently there’s extra bone there that you can use to put back in the legs as I was finished growing. Then when I was really young, I had, I kind of call these the normal surgeries of tonsils and adenoids and ear tubes in and out of my ears. They tend to happen more often among the dwarfism community or maybe sooner than your average person may have those types of surgeries.
Then the more serious surgeries came later on. When I was 15 years old, I was in a sailing race. I’m sure we’ll get to this, but I was very active growing up, participating in sports alongside my peers. Sailing was an activity that made me feel the most included because it didn’t matter how you showed up, you just figured out how to get in a boat and enjoy being on the water. If you wanted to be competitive, you could. I chose to be competitive and was in a race. I was wearing a wetsuit and it was kind of tight-fitting. I started to lose sensation in my legs. I thought, “Oh, this is probably just too tight. When I get home tonight, things will get better once I take off the wetsuit.” It was the start of severe spinal cord compression. I was less concerned about the surgery, I think because of the resilience that I built up to that point.
I knew that it was a serious surgery, but I was more afraid of falling back in school. It was suggested that maybe I could take a year off of school, but I wouldn’t let that happen because I wanted to be in the same grade level as my peers. Had the surgery, ended up missing 29 days of school. I was very fortunate that the surgery did exactly what we needed it to do. I still had a little bit of sensation loss in my legs, but not enough to impact my ability to walk going forward. Then another symptom, because of the surgery, they released 7 pieces of my lower vertebrae to take away the compression that was happening. Basically my spinal column was pinching up against the spinal cord. Fortunately, the cord was not compromised, the surgery was successful. I had a little bit of a bladder leak. I’m open about that because I had to wear a pad for everyday life.
It wasn’t enough to impact any other part of my life. I gained all the strength I needed back, was able to get back on the soccer field, swim. I skied a little bit before surgery and then I tried again, but some of the back muscles I felt like just didn’t get to the point where I needed them in order to feel comfortable skiing. I kind of put that hobby to rest. I just was able to…I felt frustrated because the home tutors didn’t come to the house enough. That meant that I was going to fall behind in the level of classes. I could still stay with my grade, but I had to go from honors to college preparatory. Once we got back to junior and senior year, I was able to be in honors and AP classes. The perfectionist that I am was happy about that.
I ended up applying to 9 colleges [and] chose Providence College in Rhode Island because there was a person with dwarfism who was in the cafeteria when I was going on tour there. I thought, so long as there’s 1 person like me here, I feel like I can feel included. It came with social challenges, especially moving away from home for the first time. But throughout my college career, I would say that minimal challenges medically. Then we got to adulthood. I moved out to LA, applied for jobs, faced a lot of challenges trying to do that. I know I’m probably getting at all the other questions, but I think I was driving around a lot in LA. LA is very spread out. I feel like I stayed active and stayed in pretty good shape, but I don’t think I put as much pressure on my body as I did when I moved to New York several years later.
Walking around New York City, I started to feel pressure on my spinal column again. This was probably like 2016 timeframe, about 10 years ago. It was recommended by the doctors at Hospital for Special Surgery where I first went, “Try to tolerate it. Do what you can to tolerate it and just continue to stay active.” Then I went to a conference down in Delaware in DuPont, they have Nemours. They have a center for skeletal dysplasia and they were willing to take patients to 35. I was 32 at the time. I thought, “What if I just try to get a year appointment until I turn…like every year until I turn 35 so I can be closely monitored?” They did a similar recommendation, “Try whatever you can to wait as long as possible. It’s going to be an intense surgery if you have to go back in.”
I waited. I tried to tolerate things. Then the pandemic happened. I think just like my lifestyle in LA, I wasn’t as active, so I just didn’t feel any symptoms. I didn’t push myself as much as maybe I could have, but if I pushed myself, was I going to feel more symptoms? There’s a lot of unknown that comes with that. During the pandemic, I also got married and got pregnant and had a baby. I had no symptoms throughout that. After having the baby, unfortunately, after 6 months we lost him. I think my body caught up with me. Stress, grief. It may have just been timing, just like the sailing race. The timing of the sailing race happened to be when the compression was happening. I tried to power through. I actually tried to go through an IVF journey right after my son passed. That did not prove to be the best route to go. I had done estrogen patches, but I hadn’t quite gotten to the shots themselves because I was in the office starting to set up the plan for the shots and I was falling. I knew that things weren’t good.
Then just fast-forward a few months, I was in the operating room for 10 hours having a spinal fusion from T11 to the pelvis and a laminectomy to T5. The reason why T11, the pelvis had to be a fusion is because that’s where surgery was before. When you’re taking away more of a bone to release the spinal cord, you are impacting the stability of the spinal column. Then T5, the surgeon almost didn’t do it, but when I went under for surgery, that was the area that went off as the most risky. She did that first and then did the fusion. I’m thankful that that happened because it could all be addressed with hopes that it’s a long time before any other potential complications that would lead to surgery.
But there’s a big unknown with what happened with the surgery. I am two and a half years out from the surgery, still doing everything I can to build as much physical strength, to be as independent as I can. One part of it is challenges with my bowel and bladder. Out of the surgery and rehab, I was retaining urine and require a suprapubic catheter. At first I was trying to manage it just with the big bag as I was also trying to build strength and walk and try not to trip on it. But now I’ve gotten a little bit more independent where I can use a plug and have it be a little bit more discreet.
Then because of the cord being compromised, whether it was for too long before the surgery or after, maybe just the impacts of the surgery and the areas that were addressed, I cannot poop on my own. I need someone to administer an enema every single morning. The reality is I can’t reach to be able to do it myself. That has been really challenging to live with. I choose to share about that challenge because not enough people talk about that challenge. Because as strong as I get, as independent as I get, I can never reach my butt.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah. I think that’s kind of the point of what you’re doing is sharing all of these things that people don’t want to talk about or people wouldn’t even cross their mind. By you sharing, you’re educating people, but you’re also making people who are in a similar situation feel like, “This person gets it.” Or, “Maybe I can talk about this because it’s my reality and it’s just my life.” I do think it’s important that you’re talking about everything that you’re comfortable talking about and you’re providing a wonderful example for other people.
Another thing about the surgery, and I want to get more into that later in the conversation, but I think you strike me as someone who’s so strong-willed with what you were talking about with, “No, I’m not going to go behind in school. I’m going to stay.” You’ve gone through so many surgeries and physical challenges, and you have such strength and determination. I think probably having autonomy over your body and yourself for that is something that you have to figure out how to navigate, right?
Becky Jackson Curran:
I am a product of my environment. If I’m around negative energy, it’s going to bring me down. I don’t want to be that person that brings people down. I know I’ve dealt with some heavy stuff in my life. But also for my own health and wellness, I feel it’s so much more important to bring joy to each day. I think a lot of my perspective comes from the way I was raised from an early age. It didn’t mean that my parents had it all figured out right away. They leaned into the help of physicians and the guidance of people within the community, even medical textbooks at libraries, reading as much as they could about a condition that you don’t find much information on. They were advised to treat me just like they do my average height older sister. It’s funny to look back and even now, my sister has never left the state and I’ve lived in 4 different states.
Because they assume that the average height child is going to be the more adventurous one and that parents are more likely to shelter their child with a disability. Right after college, when I wanted to move out to LA to work in the entertainment industry, the reason why that passion is so strong is because the way that little people are perceived in the media impacts how we’re treated in society. I wanted to try to get to the bottom of that, and you either have to be in LA or New York. I told my parents, “I want to move out there.” They said, “You can move out there if you have a job and a place to live.” I secured a job that I thought was going to pan out and a place to live. They couldn’t say no when I asked, “Can we book our plane tickets now?” Because they had promised to help me get settled for the first week.
I bought a 1-way ticket. They bought a 2-way ticket. We get to LA and the amount of people who ask them, “How could you let her do that? How could you let her fly across the country and build a life out there?” They said, “How could we not?” I’ve also learned with some tragic life events that life’s way too short to sit around and be afraid of what others think or the fears others may try to instill in me. I’m going to go out there and prove that it’s possible. I am forever grateful for the way I was raised. I joke with my parents all the time, “Thanks for not giving me up.” Because we know there’s a history of parents, the minute they hear hard news or a diagnosis, they just want to give up and they chose not to.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
That I think is a beautiful example for parents now who are listening or watching and raising a child with some kind of health condition that…to encourage them to do whatever they want to do and to treat them like you would treat any other child. I think it sounds like you have a beautiful family. I’ve seen some interviews with them and they’re just delightful people.
Becky Jackson Curran:
They get emotional. Dad is a very emotional person. My dad and I are very, very close. I’m also very close with my mom. They’ve been together and they’ve been a part of the team the whole time.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
You worked for Creative Artists Agency, or CAA, people probably know as the world’s leading entertainment and sports agency. You also worked for SAG-AFTRA. You also founded DisABILITY In Media, which focuses on positive disability inclusion storytelling. What did or do you feel is inadequate when considering people with disabilities in storytelling and how these people are depicted in the media, particularly?
Becky Jackson Curran:
Just a few months ago, I was part of this panel discussion with the Geena Davis Institute. They focus a lot on gender inclusion in media, but because they’re working with 1 demographic that’s falling behind, they believe in supporting other demographics as well. They really have a growing interest in the disability community because that also relates to the aging population, aging women, just women with disabilities, whatever it may be. I was asked to be on this panel on International Day of People with Disabilities and they shared research that said 3% of roles in Hollywood describe disability. That means a script on TV or in a film says, “Man with wheelchair enters the room.” [And] 21% of those 3% are actual people with disabilities. This is, so if that was 2025, I was working in the industry from 2006 to 2018. These numbers are still terrible, which is one of the reasons why I chose to pivot because I felt that sharing my story and trying to reach as many people as possible with my story could have some piece of an impact rather than having to depend on the industry.
While I was still at Providence, I had joined an online community, like an alumni network. I didn’t have access to it until I was an actual alumni, but one of my college roommates had older sisters who had gone to Providence. I was able to use their logins. In advance, I was already looking up people who live and work out in California. I made every outreach I could to all the people I had connected with. Asked for coffee meetings, just informational interviews, because we had that thing in common of the Providence College education. I think people are trained well to help other alumni out. One guy, he was an actor and he was represented by a talent manager who said that I could come help her. I was really kind of fixated on getting that talent management experience because that was what I was initially going to do.
Again, wasn’t a paid opportunity, but it was an opportunity for me to learn a little bit about what it’s like to be a talent manager. While I was doing that opportunity, I was able to continue to look for jobs. I got the Hollywood Creative Directory. I feel like I’m dating myself because it was this big book. I sent letters to everyone that looked of interest, every different production company. One day I was at my friend’s house, and I printed out the letters and then we walked outside and there was a step. I remember tripping on the step and all the letters flew over. But I got them back together and got them in the mail. One place responded. It was a screenwriter’s festival that was happening near the LA airport. It was just a day thing. It wasn’t even paid, but another way to get some experience.
Overall, I sent out 1000 resumes, went on 100 interviews. Every time I walked in the door, I was judged based on my appearance. I was not applying to CEO executive jobs. I was applying to very entry-level entertainment industry jobs that may or may not require a college degree, which I had to offer. Every time I walked in the door, I knew by people’s body language that I wasn’t getting the job. But they didn’t feel comfortable enough to express themselves and say, “You know what? You look a mess. You were probably driving around LA trying to get from one interview to the next and you didn’t think to take care of yourself.” But not 1 person said that in those hundred interviews. I continued to guess that the only reason I didn’t get the job was because of the way I show up.
Finally, I found some temporary placement agencies, recruiting staffing firms. I think I give them a lot of credit for how they operate because they can have someone come in, interview with them, do the tests they need, and then they can just send them to go work somewhere. That allows us the opportunity to prove ourselves rather than having to go through that formal interview that’s just going to kick us out the door. I started at the Hallmark Channel for a month, and it was around the holidays, so about 5 months into my stay in LA. It was filling in for a Chief Marketing Officer on paternity leave. I knew it wasn’t going to be a long-term opportunity because I just wasn’t at that level yet. But it was a great way to just learn how to be in an office and learn a little bit about what they do and get a paycheck.
Then after that, there was an opportunity at a place called Trailer Park where they make trailers for movies. Just a 2-day assignment, so it didn’t really last too long, but it was right around the holidays. Kept me busy, gave me a paycheck. My parents started asking, “Are you coming home for the holidays?” I’d moved to LA in August and then it got to be the holidays. I was so fearful of going home because I thought that they’re going to make me stay. They promised me they wouldn’t make me stay again as long as I come back to LA treating every day like a job, looking for a job. Finally, when I got back to LA in January, I was asked to go show up at Creative Artists Agency. This was about mid-January. It was to work for someone who was leading the Hispanic marketing department.
I was worried because I only took French in school and knew nothing about Spanish. But I also had an opportunity to meet someone who had faced adversity herself as a Latina woman. She was willing to give me a chance. Because she was so well respected at the agency, she got the support to hire someone who already worked at the agency just in another department to basically be my mentor. Someone who could answer those phone calls from the Spanish-speaking clients and show me how the business works. A lot of people say an agency is a great place to start if you want to work in the entertainment industry because you learn all facets of the industry at the same time. My first day was actually 2 days after they moved into a brand-new building. I got to be there right from the start of this new chapter for them.
It was about 3 or 4 months until there was an opportunity to work in the entertainment marketing department, which did not require speaking Spanish on a day-to-day basis. I was given the opportunity to work for this 1 lady who was amazing. I learned a lot from. She was tough. I had to do everything I could to keep her happy, but she and I had a fairly good relationship. Then once there was an opportunity to add a second boss to my plate, that was more of a business case for them to be able to turn me into a permanent employee. I was a temporary employee for 7 months. Most people who work at a talent agency, if they don’t want to pursue life as an agent, they will stay for about a year and then look for other opportunities, but that’s their basic experience that will help launch them.
For me, it took 7 months to even become a permanent employee. I was terrified of thinking of leaving anytime soon at all. I just put every ounce of effort. I think one thing that people dismiss about the disability or the rare community is that we are just tired or we can’t work as many hours, but we are constantly “yes, and-ing” and willing to adapt and work 10 times harder than the person next to us. Even if everyone else was sitting there being lazy, I was doing everything I could to keep my boss happy and do whatever was needed.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
You are a speaker. You do a lot of speaking. You’ve done 2 TEDx talks. Among many messages that you convey, I think one of the strongest ones, at least to me when I was listening to them, is about inclusion of folks with disabilities in the workplace and in society in order to shape and change or more accurately portray these different communities. Talk to me about that work that you’re doing.
Becky Jackson Curran:
Ultimately, I decided to leave LA because I didn’t want the entertainment industry to dictate how the stories are told since there was a long path ahead and life is short. I had faster, stronger work to do.
It was not easy. I did have a job right after the talent agency that within a year I knew wasn’t working out. I was working for 2 people. One wanted me there, one did not. It’s very hard to prove yourself to someone who’s already made their decision about you. My roommate at the time, who was the actor who I had mentioned, was helping me get the initial job. He was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and he was going to need to go back home to Atlanta where he was from. I thought, “There’s no one else I would want to live with in LA. I don’t know what other job I would want next. I need to go home and reset.” Very, very hard decision. Does not mean that I took it lightly, that I had a dream of living in LA forever and it was no longer my reality.
I moved back home and, of course, my parents and sister were thrilled. My sister at the time, she still is a teacher, but she was a creative writing teacher at the time. She told me, “My students have heard so much about you. I would love for you to come meet them. And you can finally do it since you live back home now.” I thought, “All right. Going for like a meet and greet sounds cool, but how do I make this a more impactful and productive experience?” I thought, “Why don’t I practice sharing my story with them and get them to ask the hard questions?” Because I truly believe that no question is offensive. I’d rather people ask questions to spark curiosity to prevent assumptions. She said, “Let’s do it.” I started thinking, after going to her school a few times, “How do I get into more schools?” There is the organization Little People of America, and they have regional events in addition to their annual conference that happens every July.
I decided to go into a parent’s meeting that takes place on the second day of the conference. I sat in on the meeting. I felt like I was confessing, “I’m not a parent, but I’m here to listen.” A lot of parents were talking about how their children had so much trouble going from elementary to middle school, middle to high school, because they’re constantly meeting new people who could be potential bullies. I remember the advice the doctor gave my parents when I was 6 months and he said, “Try to keep her in the same school system.” My stronger belief was, even keep me in the same grade. In my situation, it was okay and it worked because my parents weren’t pulled in different directions for jobs. But some families can’t control that if they have to move from 1 town or 1 city or 1 state to the other.
You’re going to meet a whole new group of people, and that means a whole new group of potential bullies. It’s the reality. When you have a physical disability that people are not familiar with, it’s going to happen. I raised my hand and said, “I would love to be a resource to your families. I would be happy to come in and talk to the administrators and let them know the accommodations I had growing up with hopes that can help them understand what your child may or may not ask for.” I’m not saying this is exactly what they need, but here’s an example of what worked for me.
That included having a step stool in front of one of the toilets in the bathroom so I could easily go to the bathroom. I had a pass. Sometimes teachers will not allow you to go to the bathroom if there’s already another girl in the class going to the bathroom. That allowed me to go quick. A railing on the staircase, if it was a 2-level building, that was lower that I could reach or access to an elevator if that was needed. Untimed tests because I take a little bit longer to write. That all falls under a 504 plan, so it was physical accommodations.
As I was getting to know some of the schools, they had the students, 1 school in New Jersey, they had a student in a special education school because they were misinterpreting the types of accommodations she needed. I was able to convince them to get her to the mainstream school. After talking to the administrators, the second part of what I would offer and continue to enjoy doing is talking to the whole student body. Let them ask me every question on their mind with hopes that when that student comes in those doors next year, that they don’t feel excluded.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
You don’t know what you don’t know, right? As you said, people may be afraid to ask for fear of offending someone or saying something wrong. I think preempting some of that, especially with young kids, when you are exposed to things and learn things at a younger age, it becomes just a normal thing. I think that’s really incredible work that you’re doing and hopefully trying to improve the environment for young kids growing up now.
Connect with Becky:
https://www.instagram.com/beckymotivates
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