LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dana Plato: Las Vegas
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It seemed the last remnants of Dana Plato's celebrity had finally been picked clean by the scandal-hungry media when she died in May. According to People magazine, "[T]he lovable star of Diff'rent Stokes grew up to be a petty crook, an addict, an alcoholic and, with her death at age 34, a Hollywood casualty." The New York Daily News added that by the early '90s "she was spending most of her time playing the nickel slots in Las Vegas after she was turned down for a $6-an-hour job picking up garbage and cleaning bathrooms." But in the last month of her life, Dana struck an even more unlikely business relationship with Shane Bugbee, a 31-year-old Chicago-based promoter, which ensured her continued infamy after death.
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Dana drifted in and out of the business over the next few years. She posed for a June 1989 pictorial in Playboy (a 5-page nude layout, the shots were taken in November 1988 in Arizona), showing off the delectable figure that she'd kept hidden for all those years. The nude pictorial did nothing to help revive her career, though, and Dana continued to languish on the fringes of the entertainment industry. She blasted her way back into the headlines in January of 1992, when she was arrested for the armed robbery of a Las Vegas video store (which she used a pellet gun and netted her $164) - she was charged with armed robbery and was later sentenced to five years probation. Her ill-conceived grab for rent money (it was really a cry for help according to many people) sent her to jail for a short stint, but her new notoriety managed to get her work in the "no publicity is bad publicity" world of Hollywood. Dana was helped by Las Vegas singer, Wayne Newton, who posted the $13,000 bail for her.
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In 1991, Plato found herself in Las Vegas with no work. Dana Plato took a job working in a dry cleaning store to make ends meet. One day, she entered a video store, produced a gun and demanded the money from the register. She was arrested shortly thereafter. The gun was only a pellet gun and the robbery netted Plato less than $200. Dana Plato made headlines and became part of the national debate over troubled child stars, particularly given the difficulties of her Different Strokes co-stars, Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges.
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Following her jail term, Dana appeared in a string of B-grade features including such sterling gems as 1992's "Bikini Beach Race" and 1995's "Compelling Evidence." She was featured in a video game in 1992 called Night Trap as a scantily clad victim. In 1995, she was in a play called "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" where she received passing grades. Her experiences behind bars ... seemed to change more than just her career prospects -- Dana came out as a lesbian in a 1998 issue of the Sapphic pride magazine "Girlfriends." (she had said in more recent interviews that she was not a lesbian and was only experimenting). She turned plenty of heads with her scintillating performance in the 1997 straight-to-video epic "Different Strokes."
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In 1991, Plato found herself in Las Vegas with no work. She took a job at a dry-cleaning store to support herself. One day, she entered a video store, produced a gun, and demanded the money from the register. She was arrested minutes later. Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton posted her US$13,000 bail bond. [17] Plato was given five years probation.
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Dana was arrested for armed robbery in 1991 for robbing a Las Vegas video store with a pellet gun. She stole $164 for rent, and received five years probation. She wore very large sunglasses and a blonde curly wig as her disguise. After existing the store, she removed the disguise and immediately returned. (edit)
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