Melanie Watson has died

Her brother, Robert Watson, told TMZ that Melanie had been hospitalised and her condition deteriorated before she passed away.

Melanie was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as Brittle Bone Syndrome, a connective tissue disease, and used a wheelchair.

Diff'rent Strokes ran for eight seasons from 1978 to 1986 and Melanie's character was introduced in the third season of the show, appearing in four episodes. Her most notable appearances came in the 1982 episode Kathy and 1984's Kathy's Olympics.

The former actress previously admitted she hadn't realised "what a gift it was" for her to be on screen and regretted giving up acting because she hadn't realised how important she was for representation.

Praising late producer Norman Lear, she told IndieWire in 2020: "I'm proud of Norman for going against the norm and doing something.

"I didn't realise what a gift it was to be the first one out there. If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed in the business."

But Melanie recalled how in the episode of Kathy, she had to appear on crutches to show that she could walk and inspire best friend Arnold (Gary Coleman) to give an important speech.

She said: "I did not want to do that. I can remember saying, 'This is somebody else's dream.

"But they explained to me this was the premise of the episode."

Melanie was afraid to walk because she had had a bad fall a few years before, but her mother told her to stay quiet and do the scene.

And she admitted she wasn't always the easiest to work with.

She said: "I was a pill. I was always playing with my yo-yo and listening to my Walkman.

"Back in those days I didn't have a wheelchair. So I was carried everywhere."

Away from acting, Melanie was briefly married to Robert Bernhardt from 1994 to 1996 and founded the organisation Train Rite, which trains shelter dogs to help disabled people.