(
)
For Marlee Matlin, the chance to win “Celebrity Apprentice” couldn’t have come at a better time.
Last week, the Oscar winner confirmed she would likely have to sell her LA home and pull her four kids out of private school to settle a $50,000 tax debt.
“I’m not shying away from it, and I’m certainly not ashamed of it,” Matlin, 45, said.
“My husband is a Los Angeles-area police officer and, between the two of us, we have always made ends meet in the past — and we will in this circumstance, as well.”
This week, things are already looking brighter for the actress, best known for the 1986 film “Children of a Lesser God.”
Matlin — who lost much of her hearing by age 2 — is set to star in a movie, “Silent Knights,” about a football coach who takes over a struggling team at a college for the deaf.
She also landed a role on the new ABC Family series “Switched at Birth” — one of those rare acting jobs where her children, who range in age from 7 to 15, can see her work.
“They can’t watch me on ‘The L Word,’ that’s for sure,” she told The Post this week. ” ‘The West Wing‘ probably would go above their heads.
“And they can’t watch me on ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ I don’t want them watching that. Too much craziness!”
Fueled by dramatic meltdowns and catfights, the 4-year-old celebrity version of “Apprentice” has helped launch or revive the show biz careers of a flock of Trump contestants — perhaps none more than its first winner, Piers Morgan.
“It really launched him in the US beyond just being ‘that British guy on ‘America’s Got Talent,’ ” says Season 2 contestant Melissa Rivers.
Two hours of prime-time exposure every week “gets you back in the public consciousness,” Rivers says. “Especially somebody like Marlee.
“There is buzz around you in producers’ minds. People start talking about what a great actress she is, and, suddenly, they are considering her for a new role.
“I think for Lil Jon, Marlee and John Rich, the show has been a great thing,” says Rivers. “As hard as [the show] can be, the long-term effects for them are going to be huge.”
Matlin will square off against country star Rich in Sunday night’s live two-hour finale.
“It was a good thing I was deaf,” she said after working for a month and a half with drama queens Star Jones, NeNe Leakes and Dionne Warwick.
“The tones, the voices, the fighting . . . Sometimes I would just look away. I wouldn’t even look at Jack [Jason, her longtime business partner and interpreter]. It just got to be too much sometimes.”