Famous People With Disabilities

[Pete]

Famous People With Disabilities
This might help knock down any stereotypes about the abilities of disabled people (don?t read that as a knock on anyone here), but compiled from this site, and personal knowledge, here are some famous people with disabilities and some commentary.

Some highlights:

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Dyslexic, Attention Deficit Disorder

George S. Patton: Dyslexic

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Polio

Winston Churchill: Dyslexic

Which means that four disabled people kicked Hitler?s ass. I have long argued that it is one of the greatest ironies in history, considering that Hitler thought we were so useless we should not be allowed to live and put that logic into action.

Also Thaddeus Stevens, the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, had a club foot.

Finally, this is interesting;

George H.W. Bush: Dyslexic (who signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, of course)

Neil Bush, Son of Barbara and Former President Bush: Dyslexic (and brother to ?W? of course, the one who didn?t go into politics)

The rest of the list is here:

Ludwig Van Beethoven: Deaf, Asthma

Larry Flint: Spinal Cord Injury (we disabled people generally try to distance ourselves from that pile of sleaze)

Christopher Reeve: Spinal Cord Injury

Michael J. Fox: Parkinson's

Alan Alda: Polio

Albert Einstein: Dyslexia (did not speak until age 3. He had a very difficult time doing math in school. It was very hard for him to express himself through writing).

Learning Disability

Alexander Graham Bell: Learning Disability

Annie Sullivan, Teacher of Helen Keller: Visually Impaired

Claude Monet: Visual Impairment

Ed Roberts, Founder of the Independent Living Movement: Polio

Frida Kahlo: Polio, Impaled (Whoa!)

Julius Caesar: Epilepsy (and stab wounds, heh)

King George III: Porphyria

Louis Braille: Visually Impaired

Mia Farrow: Polio

Sarah Bernhardt, French Actress 1844-1923: Amputee

Stevie Wonder: Visually Impaired, ADD

Thomas Edison, Inventor: Dyslexic

Walt Disney: Learning Disability

Montel Williams: Multiple Sclerosis

Ray Charles: Blind

Donald Sutherland: Polio

Harriet Tubman: Traumatic Brain Injury, Epilepsy

Agatha Christie: Dyslexic, Epilepsy

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Artist: Rheumatoid Arthritis, used a wheelchair

Dudley Moore Club Foot

Helen Keller: Blind and Deaf

John Hockenberry (reporter for MSNBC): Spinal Cord Injury

Ronnie Milsap: Blind

Abraham Lincoln: Marfan's (what the heck is that? Read here. Essentially it is why he was unusually tall for his day.)

Stephen Hawking, Astrophysicist: ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)

John Cougar Mellencamp: Spina Bifida

Toulouse Lautrec: Dwarfism

Bill Clinton: Hearing Impairment (who knew?)

Teddy Pendergrass: Spinal Cord Injury

Bob Dole: One Functioning Arm

Tom Cruise: Dyslexia (but weirdly, he claims that scientology cured him)

Marlee Matlin, Actress: Deaf

Jim Abbott, Major League Baseball Player: One Hand

Mike Utley, Athlete: Spinal Cord Injury

Terence Parkin, Olympic Swimmer<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">eaf

Marla Runyan, Olympic Runner: Visually Impaired

Harry Anderson: The judge on Night Court. Dyslexic

Jean Driscoll, Olympic Runner: Spina Bifida

Stephen Bacque, Entrepreneur of the Year, 1998: Dyslexic

Harry Belafonte: Dyslexic

George Burns: Dyslexic

Cher: Dyslexic

Leonardo Da Vinci: Dyslexic

Hans Christian Anderson: Dyslexic

Danny Glover: Dyslexic

Whoopi Goldberg: Dyslexic (rumor has it, she has such a severe case, she can?t read at all; she has to have her scripts read to her and then memorizes them)

Bruce Jenner: Dyslexic

Magic Johnson: Dyslexic (and AIDS is legally considered a disability)

Nolan Ryan, Athlete: Dyslexic

Charles Schwab: Dyslexic

Nelson Rockefeller: Dyslexic

Tom Smothers, Comedian: Dyslexic

Greg Louganis, Olympic Diver: Dyslexic

Samuel Johnson, 18th Century Writer: Tourette's Syndrome (which is not necessarily uncontrolled cursing. Learn more here.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Tourette's Syndrome

Mel Tillis, Country Singer: Speech Impediment

Daniel Inouye, U.S. Senator: Amputee

George Washington: Dyslexic

Woodrow Wilson: Dyslexic

Henry Winkler: Learning Disability (I think Dyslexia)

Alexander the Great: Epilepsy

Goya, Spanish Painter: Deaf

John Milton, Author/Poet: Blind

Carly Simon: Stutter

James Earl Jones: Stutter

Bruce Willis: Stutter

Charles I, King of England from 1625 until 1649: Stutter

Napoleon Bonaparte: Epilepsy, Attention Deficit Disorder

Socrates: Epilepsy

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Paraplegic

Itzhak Perlman, Violinist: Polio

Lord Byron, Poet: Club Foot

Heather Whitestone McCallum, Former Miss America: Deaf

Richard Burton: Epilepsy

Edgar Allen Poe, Author: Epilepsy

Sir Isaac Newton: Epilepsy

Lou Ferigno, Incredible Hulk: Hearing Impaired

John Callahan, Cartoonist: Quadriplegic

Steve Allen: Asthma

Jason Alexander: Asthma

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Olympic Medallist: Asthma

Curtis Pride, Once Detroit Tiger: Deaf

Robin Williams: ADHD (let?s face it, not exactly a surprise)

Malcolm Forbes: Attention Deficit Disorder

Steve McQueen: Attention Deficit Disorder

Admiral Richard Byrd: Attention Deficit Disorder

Bill Cosby: Attention Deficit Disorder (we should suspect more than just ADD; after all ADD rarely comes alone and his son is dyslexic)

Henry Ford: Attention Deficit Disorder

Sylvester Stallone: Attention Deficit Disorder

Ann Bancroft, First Woman to Travel Across the Ice to the North and South Poles: Dyslexic

George H.W. Bush: Dyslexic

Neil Bush, Son of Barbara and Former President Bush: Dyslexic

Stephen J. Cannell, Screenwriter, Producer, Director: Dyslexia

Dr. Red Duke, Physician, Television Comentator: Dyslexia

Fanny Flag: Dyslexia

William James, Philosopher: Dyslexia

Edward James Olmos: Dyslexia

Jackie Stewart, Race Car Driver: Dyslexia

Lindsey Wagoner: Dyslexia

William B. Yeats, Poet: Dyslexia

Quentin Tarantino: Dyslexia

Jay Leno: Dyslexia (he jokes now and then about it, but I think most people don?t realize that he is not just joking

Salma Hayek: Dyslexia

Anthony Hopkins: Dyslexia

Charles Dickens: Epilepsy

Truman Capote: Epilepsy

Peter Tchaikovsky :Epilepsy

George Freidrich Handel: Epilepsy

Feodor Dostoevsky: Epilepsy (yuck, Russian fiction)

Pythagoras: Epilepsy

Steven Speilberg: ADD

John F. Kennedy: Attention Deficit Disorder, back disorder

Eleanor Roosevelt: Attention Deficit Disorder

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Attention Deficit Disorder

Benjamin Franklin: Attention Deficit Disorder

Pete Rose: Attention Deficit Disorder

Leo Tolstoy: Attention Deficit Disorder

John Lennon: Attention Deficit Disorder

Jules Verne:Attention Deficit Disorder

John Nash: Schizophrenia

Sourced from <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.freespeech.com/archives/001988.html">here</a>

 

[Augustmom0003]

Thank you...very interesting...the one surprise was John Cougar Mellencamp having Spina Bifida! Wow!

Thank again for sharing...

 

[EnergyGal]

This is interesting. There are some folks with CF who became Famous.

Alice Martineau and a few others.

 

[coltsfan715]

I didn't see this person on your list, but wanted to put his name out there. I looked up to him in middle school and high school.

Olympic Swimmer, Gold and Silver medalist in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics:
Tom Dolan: Asthma

Thank you for posting that list. Very interesting

Lindsey

 

[Pete]

I found it really interesting as well

Some really interesting names in there, I tried to find a COMPILED list of CF's as well, but couldn't find one <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif" border="0">

I put it up cause when I read the threads here I mostly see things that people CAN'T do, so wanted to show ya's what ya's could do.

Just a positive spin on the day.

 

[anonymous]

Chopin.

 

[anonymous]

On wikipedia there is a 'list of notable people with cystic fibrosis'....hre's the link <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_people_with_cystic_fibrosis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...e_with_cystic_fibrosis</a> Thanks for sharing <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

Mel 15 w/cf

 

[Emily65Roses]

This is actually really neat. I, personally, have always had a soft spot for Michael J. Fox, which just became more profound when my dad was dx with Parkinson's. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

Mel, thank you as well. I like the list of people with CF. Personally a fan of Bob Flanagan, and Laura Rothenberg. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

 

[thefrogprincess]

Lets not forget Acadamy Award winner Marly Matlin who is deaf. I was glad that Stephen Hawking was on there, but Lou Gehrig wasn't! My great grandfather, who was one of my favorite people ever, had ALS. I would also like to add Lorenzo Adone, who has ALD, his parents (who by the way are not chemical engineers or biologists) developed a revolutionary treatment for ALD to stop the progression of it in most patients.

 

[Purplelungz]

This was a really cool read. Alot of them a surprise. Thanks for posting this.
Amanda

 

[blindhearted]

James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek) has dyslexia

Aretha Franklin : Diabetes (or so her One Touch commercial says)

Johnny Cash : Diabeies

Mohammed Ali : Parkinson's Disease

I also heard that Robin Williams had Bi-Polar disorder but cant totally confirm.

John Mellencamp really, really suprised me.

Thanks for the list, it was very interesting. Thanks to you to Mel, nice to see a list of CFers, unfortunately I dont know who any of them are, but I'm going to look them up.

 

[Emily65Roses]

Marlee Matlin is already on there. I would've added it too if I hadn't seen it, Jessi. I took sign language, deaf culture, and deaf history classes for two years. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> I personally really liked her character on SVU, she was in, I believe, two episodes.

 

[anonymous]

Famous people with Marfan Syndroim (a genetic connective tissue disorder that predisposes to aortic dissection and once had a life expectency of abou 35)

# There is serious speculation that Abraham Lincoln had the Marfan syndrome. Here is a picture of him that shows clearly some of his Marfan-like traits.
# Jonathan Larson, playwright of the Broadway show Rent, died from an aortic dissection. This was most likely due to the Marfan syndrome. He also wrote tick, tick... BOOM!
# British classical composer John Tavener has the Marfan syndrome.
# Pharaoh Akhenaten's portrayal in art suggests symptoms of the Marfan syndrome. See also The Mystery of Akhenaten: Genetics or Aesthetics? by Megaera Lorenze and Diagnosing an Engimatic Pharaoh EXN (Discovery Channel Canada, 1999)
# Flo Hyman, an Olympic volleyball player, had an undiagnosed case of the Marfan syndrome.
# Chris Patton (d. 1976), basketball player for University of Maryland, had undiagnosed Marfan syndrome.
# Russ Hexter, director of the movie Dadetown, had Marfan syndrome. He died shortly after the movie was finished, at age 27, of an aortic aneurysm.
# Also, it's been suggested that Niccolo Paganini may have had either Marfan syndrome or a similar connective tissue disorder, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

There have also been reports that bin Laden has Marfans (but he would be on infamous list, wouldn't he)

 

[anonymous]

Does Jerry Lewis have a disability?