FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

 

Jim Abbott

 

Jim Abbott has thrown a no-hitter, won Olympic gold in 1988, and been on Letterman.  He is one of a handful of professional players who never once put on a minor league uniform, jumping instead straight from college baseball to the big league.  But those aren’t the only reasons we know Jim Abbott.  He is the only player in baseball that was born with one hand.

 

Abbott was able to reach the major league without having a right hand, and he quickly became one of the better pitchers in the game during the early 1990’s.

 

 

Harry Andersen

 

Harry Andersen (TV actor, played Judge Stone on Night Court) has managed to con and charm his way through school.  He had an extraordinary memory and could remember anything at 16.  Valedictorian but he could barely read to rehearse his lines.

 

 

Sarah Bernhardt

 

French actress (1844 – 1923) Disabled by a knee injury, her leg amputated in 1914, she continued starring on stage until just before her death.  She is regarded as France’s greatest actress  -- “The Divine Sarah”.

 

 

Ludwig Von Beethoven

 

Ludwig Von Beethoven a German composer who was deaf when he composed his 9th symphony.

 

 

Werner Von Braun

 

Werner Von Braun regularly failed his high school math examinations and was often caught daydreaming due to his ADD of one day flying to other planets.

 

 

Chris Burke

 

Chris Burke, best known for the character, Corky, played for four years on the television series, A Life Goes On, and became one of America’s favorite personalities.  Through his work, he was able to transform American’s image of the people with disabilities.  Ever since Chris spoke his first word, it became clear that he was a remarkable individual with many talents.

 

Chris Burke was the first person with Down syndrome to star in a weekly television series.  Currently, he serves as the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) Ambassador.  Chris had the faith in his own abilities and the courage to fight prejudice as he pursued his dream to become an actor.

 

Today Chris travels all around the country delivering inspirational speeches to various groups of children, students, parents, and professionals.  He not only serves as editor-in-chief of the NDSS magazine for teens and young adults with Down syndrome, but also writes a column and responds to reader’s correspondence in a regular question and answer feature in the magazine.

 

 

John Callahan

 

John Callahan who has a spinal cord injury, as well as alcoholism, is a Cartoonist – One of his most famous cartoon is two cowboys looking at an empty wheelchair and the caption reads:  Don’t worry, he won’t get far.

 

 

Judi Chamberlin

 

In her early 20s Judi Chamberlin was hospitalized in a state institution due to depression.  She was horrified by the prison-like atmosphere of the hospital and soon discovered that, as a psychiatric patient, she had no legal rights.  Later, in the 1970s, Judi founded a group of psychiatric survivors called the Mental Patients Liberation Front.  In 1978 she published a book, On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.  Judi received the Distinguished Service Award of the President of the United States from the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities in 1992.

 

 

Winston Churchill

 

British statesman, soldier and author.  Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII Received Nobel Prize of literature in 1953.  He had a learning disability and bipolar disorder.

 

 

Tom Cruise

 

Tom Cruise is among the most talented actors in Hollywood.  His films take in hundreds of millions of dollars and his fans also number in the millions.  Some of his big hits were Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Rain Man, Far and Away, Few Good Men, Mission Impossible, and Jerry Mcguire.

 

Even though Tom Cruise battle dyslexia, which is a learning disability that alters the way the brain process written material, he was nominated for and won several awards for best actor.

 

 

Amy Ecklund

 

Amy Ecklund was the second of four children to Shirley and C. Robert Cox. Formerly known as Amy Cox, the talented Amy Ecklund created the character of Abigail Blume on Guiding Light in August of 1995. Amy is deaf in real life, just like her character due to a loss of hearing at age six because of an illness. Her mother signed her up for speech classes so she wouldn't lose her ability to talk. Amy speaks, reads lips, and uses American Sign Language.

 

 

Thomas Alva Edison

 

Thomas Alva Edison is one of America's most famous inventors.  At the age of 15, he loses his hearing and he has a learning disability.  He couldn’t read until he was twelve years old and had very difficult time writing even when he was older.

 

 

Albert Einstein

 

Albert Einstein did not speak until the age of three.  Even as an adult Einstein found that searching for words was laborious.  He found schoolwork, especially math, difficult and was unable to express himself in writing.  He was thought to be simple minded (retarded), until it was realized that he was able to achieve by visualizing rather than by the use of language.  He work on relativity, which revolutionized modern physics, was created in his spare time.

 

 

Francisco Goya

 

Francisco Goya is a famous Spanish artist whose multifarious paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters.  At the age of 46, a serious illness left Goya permanently deaf.

 

 

Stephen Hawking

 

Stephen Hawking is a physicist/mathematician who has Lou Gehrigs Disease.  He uses a wheelchair for mobility and a computer to speak.

 

 

Henry Holden

 

From the time he was a young child, Henry Holden’s dream was that of becoming an actor.  To date Henry has numerous acting credits to his name.  He has made appearances on T.J. Hooker, AFTER mash, Hill Street Blues, Knots Landing, Hunter, Dear John, and Kids Incorporated.  Henry also starred in a rock video, entitled, “I Got News for You.”  In addition to acting, Henry is an athlete, stand-up comic, and activist.  Henry’s athletic accomplishments include downhill skiing, certified scuba diving, bowling a high score of 196 in league competition, flying gliders and single engine airplanes, riding at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and finishing in the Los Angeles Marathon.  Finishing the New York City Marathon is on Henry’s “To Do” list!

 

Henry Holden contracted polio during the 1952 Epidemic.  He was four years old at the time.  His disability has never stopped him from pursuing a path of excellence in his life, even though he wears leg braces and uses crutches.  In addition to his acting career he now speaks on the guest lecture circuit on college campuses across the country.  Henry is a tireless advocate for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all forms of entertainment and media.  He is the founder of Performers with Disabilities for the Screen Actors Guild, and recently, he was the recipient of the very first American Scene Award given by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Arts for the rock video he starred in entitled “I’ve Got News For You.”  Henry’s motto is “Attitudes are the Real Disability!”

 

 

Judy Heumann

 

Judy Heumann fought all her life to be included in the educational system.  When the New York City Board of Education refused to let her teach, even the ACLU would not help, but after a long struggle she eventually won her case.  In 1970 Judy and several-disabled friend founded Disabled in Action, an organization that set out to secure the protection of people with disabilities under Civil Rights Laws.  She moved to Berkeley in 1973 where she served as deputy Director of the Center for Independent Living and led the takeover of the HEW Offices in San Francisco to get Califano to sign the Section 504 regulations.  In 1983, with Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann co founded the World Institute on Disability, and has served as Assistant Secretary of Education in charge of the Office of Special Education of Rehabilitation.

 

 

Bruce Jenner

 

Bruce Jenner (Olympic decathlon champ) barely got through school, diagnosed as a dyslexic (sports gave him better self-esteem) he found that through sports he could hold his head up with friends and feel good about him.

 

 

Magic Johnson

 

Magic Johnson, at 6-foot 9, was the tallest point guard in the National Basketball Association (NBA).  His talents elicited wonder and admiration from even the most casual basketball fan.  He accomplished everything a player could dream of during his 12 year NBA career.

 

On November 7, 1991, Johnson retired from professional basketball because a blood test had shown that he was infected with HIV.  He then dedicated his life to educating people especially youngsters-about HIV and AIDS prevention.  He established the Magic Johnson Foundation to raise money to fund HIV and AIDS organizations.

 

 

Frida Kahlo

 

Born in Mexico, Frida Kahlo is known throughout the world for her unusual, colorful, and sometimes disturbing paintings.  Her disabilities stemmed from childhood polio and a horrible bus accident when she was eighteen.  Many of her paintings reflect the physical pain she suffered through most of her life.  Kahlo was also active in Mexican political causes, which led to her joining the Communist Party.

 

 

Helen Keller

 

Helen Keller was suddenly shut off from the world at the age of 19 months by the loss of sight and hearing. Against overwhelming odds, she waged a slow and difficult but successful battle to re-enter the world. A near-savage deaf and blind mute child grew into a woman who wrote, spoke, and labored incessantly for the betterment of others and almost single-handedly destroyed age-old myths about people with disabilities.

 

 

Dorothea Lange

 

Dorothea Lange walked with a limp due to contracting polio at the age of seven.  She said her disability “I think it was perhaps the most important thing that happened to me.  If formed me, guide me, instructed me, helped me, humiliated me, all those things at once.  I’ve never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it.”  Lange spent her life traveling the world photographing mostly the disenfranchised.

 

 

Audre Lorde

 

Audre Lorde’s family was from the Caribbean Island of Grenada but she grew up in New York City.  After being married and raising two children, Lorde came out as a lesbian in 1971.  Her writing and lectures reflected her concern for the oppressed: women, gays, and lesbians, and racial minorities.  When she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer she refused to wear a prosthesis stating, “Either I love my body one-breasted now, or remain forever alien to myself.”  Lorde won several awards for her writing.

 

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Greg Louganis

 

Greg Louganis an American Olympic Gold Medal Diver.  He has dyslexia, stuttered and had asthma as a child.  He was in special classes for speech and reading.  Also, contracted HIV.

 

 

Wilma Mankiller

 

Wilma Mankiller was a homemaker living in San Francisco suburbs during the 1960s when she became involved with the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island.  The protest inspired Mankiller to become more involved in Native American issues and she eventually returned to her Cherokee county in Northern Oklahoma.  In 1979, while Mankiller was in the hospital recovering from a serious care accident, she was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy.  She continued working with the Cherokee Nation and in 1985 became Principle Chief, the first woman ever to hold such a high-ranking position in a major tribal government.

 

 

Marleen Matlin

 

Marleen Matlin is a stand-up comedian and an actress.  Some of her films include Dead Silence, Its My Part, Hear No Evil, Bridge to Silence, Walker, and Children of a Lesser God.  In 1987, she captivated the world by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in the film A Children of a Lesser God.

 

Marleen Matlin became deaf in infancy due to Roseola infantum.  However, deafness has not disabled her or her career.

 

 

John Milton

 

English Author/poet (1608-1674):  He became blind at the age of 43.  He went on to create his most famous epic, Paradise Lost.

 

 

Terence Parkin

 

Many swimmers completed in multiple events during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.  One of them was Terence Parkin of South Africa.  Terence’s events included the 200 and 400-meter individual medley, the 4x100 meter free relay, and the 100 and 200-meter breaststroke.  He swans in a total of eighth different qualifying and final races in five days during the Olympics.  Terence finished fifth in the 400-meter individual medley.  In the 200-meter breaststroke, he finished second to win the silver medal.

 

What makes this 20-year-old Olympic swimmer somewhat unique is that he has never been able to hear a race starter’s signal.  Born deaf, Terence uses a strobe light similar to a camera flash to signal the beginning of the race.  The Olympic competitor only began swimming at age 14.  Now he holds three national records in South Africa and owns a silver medal from the Sydney Olympics.

 

 

George Patton

 

Severely learning disabled, this youth could neither read nor write at the age of 12.  He overcame his difficulties to an extent to win appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but, even there, had to hire a “reader” to help him get through his studies.

 

 

Itzhak Perlman

 

Perlman began his music career at the Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv, Israel.  In 1958, at the age of 13, Itzhak Perlman won an Israeli talent competition.  This win made it possible for Perlman to travel to the United States to tour and appear on television.  He then stayed in the U.S. and continued his musical training at the Juilliard School in New York City.  In 1964, Perlman won a contest among young musicians knows as the Leventritt Competition.  Winning this competition opened the door for young Perlman to perform his violin music all over the world.

 

Itzhak, now an acclaimed violinist of his generation, has performed with every major orchestra and in recitals and festivals the world over.  In 1986, he received the nation’s Medal of Liberty for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.  His joy of making music has captivated audiences and has achieved Perlman a level of respect and admiration among people of many nations.  Great violin concertos make up the core of Perlman’s recorded music, ranging from the baroque to the contemporary.  Most recently Perlman is featured in the hit new movie “Music of the Heart.”

 

Born (1945) in Tel Aviv, Israel, Itzhak Perlman contracted polio at age 4, permanently paralyzing his legs.  He performs his music while seated and walks with crutches.  Itzhak is a well-known advocate for people with disabilities; actively promoting laws to ease access to buildings and transportation.

 

 

John Wesley Powell

 

John Wesley Powell has a strong interest in nature and science even as a child.  After he lost his right arm in the Civil War, his father urged him to become a minister saying, “Wes, you are a maimed man, get this notion of science and adventure out of your mind.” Ignoring this John Wesley became a Science Professor and explorer who developed an interest in preserving Native American Cultures.  In 1879, he founded the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology to study and record the traditions of Native Americans.

 

 

Christopher Reeve

 

Christopher Reeve grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with his mother and his stepfather.  In 1977 Reeve was chosen from 200 hopefuls to star in A Superman for which he won the British Academy Award as best actor.

 

During a cross-country event in May 1995, his horse balked at a rail jump, pitching Reeve forward, he landed headfirst.  The injuries left the actor paralyzed, unable to use any of his limbs or even to breathe without the help of a respirator.

 

Currently, Reeve is dedicated to increasing public awareness about spiral cord injury and to raising money for research for a cure.  He is also chairman of the American Paralysis Association and vice chairman of the National Organization on Disability.  Furthermore, Reeve founded the Christopher Reeve Foundation in 1996 to raise research money and provide grants to local agencies, which focus on the quality of life of people with disabilities.

 

 

William Rinaldi

 

William Rinaldi was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a Teacher and Governmental Administrator.  He was the first mainstreamed wheelchair user in regional elementary, secondary, college, and graduate school.  He has been a National Vice-President of the Muscular Dystrophy.

 

 

Franklin Roosevelt

 

In 1928, Franklin Roosevelt was elected as the governor of New York.  He soon started his campaigned for the presidency, and he became the 32nd President of the United States in 1932.  Furthermore, by defeating Alfred Landon in 1936, Lesser Margins in 1940, and Thomas Dewey in 1944, he became the only American President to serve more than two terms.

 

In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt contracted a near fatal case of polio that left him with limited physical activity.  He established a foundation at Warm Spring, Georgia to help people who had polio, and he directed the March of Dimes Program that eventually funded an effective vaccine.  As a result of polio, Roosevelt used a wheelchair and stood with the aid of a steel leg braces.  He tried numerous treatments, but was never able to walk on his own again.

 

 

Harilyn Rousso

 

After earning a degree in economics from Brandeis University and working for a while at the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, DC, Harilyn Rousso discovered she had an interest in a career that would involve interpersonal relationships.  She became an activist after being dropped from a psychotherapy-training institute solely because of her disabilities.  Harilyn was also involved in the women’s movement and became active in trying to get both movements to acknowledge and incorporate each other.  In the early 1980s she helped design the Networking Project for Disabled Women and Girls, and in 1988 Harilyn edited the book, Disabled, Female, and Proud.

 

 

Marla Runyan

 

One of the women representing the United States in the 1500-meter track event at the 2000 Olympics was Marla Runyan.  The American runner finished seventh in her preliminary heat and rose to sixth in the semifinals to qualify for the finals.  During the final race, Marla lost track of the major competitors.  She finished in eighth position, 3.20 seconds behind the gold medal winner. 

 

In 1996, Marla set several track and field records at the Paralympics in Atlanta, Georgia.  Following that success, Marla wanted to compete in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney – even though she is legally blind.  The 31-year-old runner has been diagnosed with Stargardt disease.  This is a condition that leaves her with a limited ability to see what is in front of her.  In Sydney, Marla became the first legally blind athlete to compete in an Olympics.

 

 

Charles Schwab

 

Charles Schwab was an American creator of multi-million dollar broker firm.  He earned a MBA from Stanford despite severe dyslexia.  Founded PERC, Parents’ Educational Resource Center in San Mateo, CA., which provides counseling, a lending library and referrals to families dealing with learning disabilities.

 

 

Harriett Tubman

 

Harriett Tubman was a slave born on a plantation in Maryland.  When she was thirteen years old she threw herself between a fellow slave and the plantation overseer who was about to whip him.  The overseer struck Harriett on the head.  For the rest of her life she had a form of epilepsy.  When she was 29 Harriett Tubman escaped from slavery and dedicated the rest of her life to rescuing other slaves and to Civil Rights, including women’s suffrage.

 

 

Mike Utley

 

Mike Utley was the greatest football player in the history of John F. Kennedy High School in Seattle, Washington.  He became only the second player at Washington State University to earn consensus first teams All-American Honors.  During the Rams game in November 1991, he fractured his 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae and became paralyzed.

 

Through his own fight to walk again, Utley founded the Mike Utley Foundation in 1991.  The Foundation is dedicated to supporting research to cure paralysis and to help all people with spinal cord injuries.

 

 

Leonardo da Vinci

 

Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter, sculptor, writer, scientists, engineer, musician and architect.  Renaissance genius.  Strephosymbolis (unable to process symbols accurately).

 

 

George Washington

 

George Washington was unable to spell throughout his life and his grammar usage was very poor.  His brother suggested that perhaps surveying in the backwoods might be an appropriate career for young George.

 

 

Heather Whitestone

 

The new Miss America for 1995 is…. (drum roll)… Heather Whitestone of Birmingham, Alabama!

 

There she is … Miss American.  But unlike other Miss America crown holders, Heather never actually heard those words in 1995 as she was crowned.  Miss Whitestone was the first person with a disability ever to be selected as Miss America.  Heather had been deaf since the age of 18 months.  Doctors told Heather’s parents that she would never read beyond the third grade level, nor learn to speak.  In response to the judges’ question about her aim in life, she replied that she would like to assist children from all backgrounds to reach their fullest potential in life, to set high goals, and achieve them, as she had done.  Heather’s special talent for the Miss America talent portion of the contest was ballet.

 

Heather Whitestone is currently the spokesperson for the Helen Keller Eye Research Foundation and the Starkey Hearing Aid Foundation.  She has also authored a book entitled, Listening with My Heart.  Ms. Whitestone is a motivational speaker who believes in and promotes following your dreams.  She is now married and expecting her second child in 2001.

 

 

Woodrow Wilson

 

This young orator did not learn his letters until the age of 8 or learn to read until he was 11.  Letters from relatives commiserated with the parents that the lad was so “dull and backward.”  At school, he excelled only when the subject had to do with speech.  But then, wrote a biographer, “it has been noted that dyslexics not infrequently become fluent speakers, perhaps it part, as a compensation for poor facility in reading and writing.”

 

 

Robin Williams

 

Robin Williams (famous Hollywood Star) was diagnosed to be suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a child.  He never refuses a role related to medicine e.g. Awakenings, Path Adams.