Campaign to Spotlight Skills of the Disabled

When Actress Madlyn Rhue first got a call from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society about doing an ad for them, she turned them down.

It’s not that she was embarrassed about being seen in a wheelchair. After all, Rhue, who suffers from the disease that attacks the body’s muscular system, plays the role of “Annie,” a wheelchair-bound ballistics expert on the CBS television show “Houston Knights.”

But she thought the organization wanted her to do what she calls “poor me” ads. “I didn’t want to do any of that look-how-I’ve-been-victimized jazz,” the Beverly Hills resident said in an interview. But instead, they showed her a proposed campaign by the New York ad firm Wells, Rich, Green, that showed people with MS doing everything from scuba diving to sky diving.

The new print ad campaign breaks this month. “It says to the world, OK, I’m in a wheelchair,” Rhue said, “but look at what I can do.”