Famous People and Schizophrenia
There are relatively few famous people with schizophrenia because schizophrenia is a brain disorder that typically strikes people when they are quite young - age 17 to 28. People this age typically are too young to be famous, they are just starting out their professional lives after completing high school or college.
A recent Nobel Laureate in Economics, John Forbes Nash Jr., has a lifetime history of Schizophrenia but is now doing very well, as has been well documented in the book "A Beautiful Mind" and the academy award-winning movie of the same name.
Many "historical diagnoses" are frequently not entirely certain -- a "good guess" for schizophrenia includes Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln. Following is a list of famous people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, or are highly suspected of suffering (or who had suffered) from schizophrenia.
* Tom Harrell, Jazz Musician
* Meera Popkin, Broadway Star
* John Nash - Mathematician/Nobel Prize Winner
* Albert Einstein's son - Eduard Einstein
* Dr. James Watson's son (Dr. Watson is co-discover of DNA and Nobel Prize winner)
* Alan Alda's Mother (Alan Alda is the famous TV actor from the series MASH)
* Andy Goram - Scottish Soccer Player/Goal Keeper
* Lionel Aldridge - Superbowl-winning Football Player
* Peter Green, Guitarist for the band Fleetwood Mac
* Syd Barrett of the band Pink Floyd
* Alexander "Skip" Spence and Bob Mosley - both members of the 1960's rock group Moby Grape (and Jefferson Airplane for Skip Spence)
* Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson, of the Austin-based 1960's group TheThirteenth Floor Elevators
* Joe Meek - 1960's British record producer
* James Beck Gordon (Jim Gordon) - James Gordon had been, quite simply, one of the greatest drummers of his time
* Charles "Buddy" Bolden - Jazz Musician
* Antoin Artaud - Dramatist, Artist
* Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln (past-President of the United States)
* Vaclav Nijinsky, Famous Russian Dancer
* Jack Kerouac, Author, was diagnosed with Schizophrenia
* Tennessee Williams sister Rose Williams had schizophenia
The most famous case of schizophrenia, thanks to a biopic starring Russell Crowe, belongs to John Nash. John Nash is a mathematician who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his work in game theory as a student at Princeton. He works primarily with partial differential equations, differential geometry and game theory. He currently is serving as the Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University. He was admitted to a mental hospital in 1959 and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He had begun showing signs of the disease a year earlier. He was given insulin shock therapy and antipsychotic medications to treat the disease but in 1970 quit all treatments for the disease and began to recover from the disease over the passage of time.
Another huge name in the list of famous people with schizophrenia is Jack Kerouac, the famous "beat generation" author whose famous works include On the Road and The Dharma Bums. According to some of Kerouac's books and a few of the biographies that have been written about him, he faked mental illness because he wanted to be discharged from the army. Whether or not he faked it or actually had the disease is up for debate. He was diagnosed with either "Dementia Praecox" or "indifferent disposition" while in the Navy, dementia praecox being an older term for schizophrenia, and this diagnoses earned him his honourable discharge.
Another of the famous people with schizophrenia is Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson is famous for creating the album Pet Sounds almost entirely by himself and for struggling with his mental illness. For years it was not known that he suffered from schizophrenia. He spent some time in the care of Eugene Landy (a very controversial therapist) and Landy is credited with much of his recovery from a prolonged period of severe depression and was eventually diagnosed with "schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type" which is a disorder that made him hear voices.
Other famous people with schizophrenia include Mary Todd Lincoln (wife of Abraham Lincoln), Joe Meek, Buddy Bolden, Antoin Artaud, Skip Spence and Bob Mosley and, quite possibly, Picas