Troy Kotsur is an American actor and film and stage director who won an Academy Award for playing the role of Frank Rossi in the American film CODA (2021) in the category of Best Supporting Actor on March 27, 2022, becoming the first male deaf actor to win an Oscar. [3]The Independent.Kotsur grew up as the only deaf member of his family. His hearing impairment was discovered by his parents when he was just nine months old. In an interview, while sharing how his mother discovered his deafness, he said, I was in the crib when my mother spoke behind me but I didnt respondShe came back with two pans from the kitchen. She banged real loud but I still didnt hear. Childhood picture of Troy Kotsur with his family.After discovering their sons deafness, Kotsurs parents started taking American Sign Language (ASL) lessons to aid Kotsur to develop communication skills.When Troy was 7, his younger brother Brett Kotsur drowned in their backyard swimming pool. Brett was underwater for almost forty minutes before he was saved. Unfortunately, the incident led to severe brain damage and dysfunctionality in Brett after which he had to depend on a ventilator for the rest of his life. Brett died at the age of 21.At the age of eight, Kotsur was mesmerized by an American epic space film of the Star Wars trilogy. Enchanted by the visuals and costumes, Kotsur went on to view the film over 28 times. In an interview, while talking about the Star Wars film, he said, It was so visual, the costumes, it just blew me away. I watched it again and again. And it got me hoping that someday I could make a movie..Apart from participating in skits and plays, he also played varsity basketball during his high school days.When Troy was 17, his father, Len, suffered a serious car accident, which paralyzed his body from the neck down. Following the horrific accident, a communication gap arose between the father and son as Len could no more use ASL to communicate with Troy. Len died in 2001.After high school, he had a stint as an editor at Phoenixs TV station KTSP-TV (now KSAZ-TV).In 1989, while attending Gallaudet University, he appeared in his first play, Susan Zeders In a Room Somewhere, directed by Victor Brown.In an interview, Kotsur talked about initial struggles in the entertainment industry and said, During auditions, I would generally never get the role because most of the time they would ask, Can you speak? And of course another actor could speak better than I could, since Im completely deaf and that can be a challenge I was doing it the old-fashioned way back in the 90s: I had to buy $300 worth of envelopes and stamps and send these headshots to 300 different casting directors, and out of that, I may get one audition..