Alan Toy

Alan is a lifelong activist/organizer in the disability community, working to increase individual and community-based empowerment. He is a Project Director at the UCLA Policy Forum's Neighborhood Knowledge Research Center, in the School of Public Policy and Social Research, where he is the manager of several online projects that assist people with disabilities with their day-to-day independent living needs; coordinate disaster management volunteer trainings and opportunities; and map a wide variety of community health resources.Previously, he was a senior organizer for the Los Angeles Homecare Workers Union, where his work on In-Home Supportive Services policy issues was critical to the development of a model IHSS Public Authority in LA County to improve the personal assistance programs for both consumers and workers. After SEIU, Alan was the Senior Executive Analyst at Access Services, Los Angeles County's paratransit agency, where he wrote and got enacted legislation beneficial to California's paratransit agencies.As an actor for over 25 years, Alan has worked to bring changes to the way people with disabilities are portrayed in entertainment media. He has over 200 television and film credits and was the co-founder of the Hollywood SAG-AFTRA-AEA Inter-Guild Committee of Performers with Disabilities. Alan's film and TV jobs have included playing "Professor Finley", the nasty cult leader on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) as well as a wide variety of characters - parents, lawyers, doctors, scientists, veterans, teachers in In the Line of Fire (1993), Kansas (1988), "Equal Justice", Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Matlock (1986), Profiler (1996), Diagnosis Murder (1993), Highway to Heaven (1984), M*A*S*H (1972) and many others, including the upcoming Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator (2004). He served on the Board of the Media Access Office, which consults with industry leaders about disability portrayals and casting.Alan is also a twice-elected member (and currently vice-chair) of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board and has served on that city's Social Services Commission. He is an appointee of former Governor Gray Davis to the California State Independent Living Council, where he is the 2004 vice-chair. He is also currently the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Southern California. Alan has a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a Masters degree in Urban Planning from the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. Show less «