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Movies With Disabled Heroes

One of the kids in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was wheelchair-bound. I think he's the last one of the non-surviving ones to get splatted, too, so I suppose that kind of makes him a hero of some sort.

Oh, and the hero in Top Gun was played by some kind of disfigured dwarf. Does that count?
 
One of the kids in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was wheelchair-bound.
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That reminds me, one of the 'victims' in one of the early Friday the 13th film was in a wheelchair, can't recall which one, just that he gets an axe in the head then wheelchair, he and axe go down a flight of stairs :shock:
 
Mr. No Legs (1981):

http://www.5minutestolive.com/1D/MRNOLEG.htm

Richard Jaeckel stars as a Florida policeman tracking a gang of heroin dealers led by evil fatcat D'Angelo (Lloyd Bochner), who naturally has his hooks into everything, including the corrupt police captain (John Agar). There are drag queens, barroom brawls, shootouts, and the usual mayhem, but what makes this film particularly noteworthy is its central hitman, Lou. He has no legs and travels in a motorized wheelchair decked out with Chinese throwing stars and 2 double-barreled shotguns. Lou is also strong enough that when he isn't blasting people with his killer wheelchair he can swing around on his arms and use his legless torso to bludgeon people into submission.
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and

Prelude to Happiness (1974):

http://www.5minutestolive.com/2D/preludetohappiness.htm

This amazing mid 70's sleaze soap opera exploitation classic has been lost for over 30 years! It is a virtually unclassifiable blend of extreme melodrama, early 50's cheesecake shots involving a real amputee and more visible boom mics than “Dolemite” & “Chained Heat” put together!

Sue Imes loses her left leg in a car accident. When her fiancé learns of this, he leaves her. Heartbroken in the hospital, she meets Dr. Steve Hartman, a dashing young doctor who offers her a job as a nurse, saves her from a group of thugs and gets her an apartment. Steve eventually tells her that he loves her but she rejects him, due to the pain of her last failed love and the fact that Steven already has a fiancé. Will they fall in love and live happily ever after, or will they experience a strange twist of fate? What makes this movie such an oddity is how seriously it is played. Even when Sue is shown hopping around in a bikini or strapping on her prosthetic leg in her underwear the film never lets up with it's Douglas Sirk like approach.
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Has anyone seen Blindman? It's a spaghetti western where the traditional heroic gunfighter is blind. Presumably based on the Zatoichi blind swordsman movies, but I wouldn't like to be in the vicinity when Blindman was taking aim. I've never seen it, but I don't think it's a comedy.
 
If blindness counts as a disability then I'd like to throw TV Detective "Longstreet" into the mix. Blind as the proverbial...

Longstreet (1971) (TV)
"The pilot for the 1971 - 1972 series of the same title. The story of Michael Longstreet, an insurance investigator recovering from an explosion that killed his wife and took his sight. He decides to remain an investigator and find those responsible for his wife's death and his blindness."

mooks
 
In the Ghostbusters cartoon series one of the ghostbusters was in a wheelchair. There´s also a guy in a wheelchair in family guy, but I haven´t really watched that.

There is also a tv-series called Monk which is about a police detective with a obsessive compulsive disorder.
 
I've seen Mr. No Legs as mentioned by @ogopogo3 above, and it is a hoot. Ted Vollrath is the man of the title, a drug enforcer, and he had legit skills. From IMDB:
Ted Vollrath was born in 1936 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Vollrath served in the US Marines and fought in the Korean war. Ted had to have both of his legs amputated because of severe injuries received in combat. He began training in the martial arts in 1967 and was the first person to earn a black belt in karate while training out of a wheelchair. Vollrath eventually became a karate Grand Master and acquired black belts in several different styles of the martial arts. In 1971 Ted founded the Martial Arts for the Handicapable Incorporated; this organization is dedicated to teaching the martial arts to disabled people. Vollrath made his sole foray into feature film acting with a solid performance as Lou, a vicious and lethal enforcer for a drug dealer in the positively jaw-dropping low-budget action exploitation oddity "Mr. No-Legs." Ted put on an impressively vigorous and exciting display of his martial arts prowess in a simply incredible protracted set piece which occurs halfway through the picture. Moreover, Vollrath also appeared in the documentary "Let Me Live in Your World." Ted Vollrath died on November 18, 2001.
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Here is a scene of Ted showing what he could do from Mr. No Legs:

However, it occurred to me that we didn't have any mention of Jay J Armes, aka JJ Armes, who appeared in a few shows like the original Hawaiian 5.0, was a real life detective, and who had his own action figure!
jjarmes.jpg

His most famous case was rescuing Marlon Brando's son after his mother kidnapped him from the star.
In 1972, while his father was abroad in France filming Last Tango in Paris, Christian was kidnapped by his mother, who took him from school, then brought him to a gang of hippie friends in Baja California, Mexico. Apparently, she had promised them $10,000 if they would hide Christian away.[1] When she refused to pay, they took and hid the boy; a posse of private detectives hired by Marlon, from an agency named "The Investigators", led by private investigator Jay J. Armes, rescued him late one night. He was found living in a tent and ill with bronchial pneumonia. His mother was arrested near the Mexican border after being pulled over for drunk driving and disorderly behavior.[3] Back in court his father was awarded sole custody.[4]
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This is the best article I know on him:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/is-jay-j-armes-for-real/

Here he is as the assassin Hookman on Hawaiian 5.0. That his literally him building a rifle and firing it with prosthetic hands:

The toy commercial:
 
Joan Crawford played a wheelchair-ridden heroine in 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?' with Bette Davis, a 1962 mystery / horror movie.
They were both great - Davis played a former star, Crawford was her sister.
Bette Davis plays the mean sister!
 
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