Famous people with asperger's - Where's a list of them?

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Anemone
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10 Jan 2009, 2:12 pm

Morgana wrote:
What irritated me about the article was that the main reason they stated Marilyn might have had an ASD was because she suffered from depression and committed suicide. However, this does not automatically make one an Aspie! She may have been manic depressive; in any case, from what I know of her, the NT-manic depressive thing seems to fit...however, maybe there´s something I don´t know about her?


I don't think she was bipolar. She came across in what I read as pretty consistent in her moods. Bipolar mood swings can be pretty obvious. Manic partying. Repeated suicide attempts. Episodes of gambling or manic spending. Monroe wasn't really a drama queen like that. Of course she could have been unipolar, but she didn't come across that way either.

Monroe was in foster care as a kid. She was sexually abused, and not believed or supported. She was sexually abused by the system as an adult. She was trying to make the life she was given workable but I don't think anyone really could. So she ended it all. You don't need to invoke a mental illness for that. Ordinary garden variety "I can't get this life to work" will do. I mean, people expected her to thrive in a psychologically unhealthy environment. And she was gifted, so she would have felt it more. Lots of gifted sensitive people from dysfunctional backgrounds die young in Hollywood. It's a cliche.



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10 Jan 2009, 8:14 pm

I'm really hesitant to label someone as AS because they have an emotional breakdown, or were depressed, I honestly don't think that Marilyn Monroe had it or a lot of other performers. I think if you want to find famous people with AS, you got to go where they're usually gifted which is most often writing, science, math and art.

Nikola Tesla was the stereotypical "mad scientist" who was obsessed with his routines, was very sensitive to light and sound and especially touch, was never married and had amazing abilities - he could picture engineering diagrams in his head in detail, spoke 8 languages and had an amazing memory. He was also brutally honest and always spoke his mind, sounds like the exact opposite of acting to me.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the most gifted mathematicians in history, he displayed signs of autism in his childhood (speech delay, obsession with numbers) and adulthood - quiet, shy, lacked common sense in a lot of areas in life such as money management. Numbers came natural to him, as with quite a few autistics. Again, math is something that comes natural to a lot of autistics, acting is a form of socializing and usually doesn't.

Glenn Gould: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould#Health

Moe Norman: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/200 ... rman_x.htm


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millie
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10 Jan 2009, 8:23 pm

we could fuse this thread with the jett travolta thread....

anyone interested in a little more celebrity carcass-pecking will undoubtedly enjoy the fusion.



Morgana
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11 Jan 2009, 8:20 am

Anemone wrote:
Morgana wrote:
What irritated me about the article was that the main reason they stated Marilyn might have had an ASD was because she suffered from depression and committed suicide. However, this does not automatically make one an Aspie! She may have been manic depressive; in any case, from what I know of her, the NT-manic depressive thing seems to fit...however, maybe there´s something I don´t know about her?


I don't think she was bipolar. She came across in what I read as pretty consistent in her moods. Bipolar mood swings can be pretty obvious. Manic partying. Repeated suicide attempts. Episodes of gambling or manic spending. Monroe wasn't really a drama queen like that. Of course she could have been unipolar, but she didn't come across that way either.

Monroe was in foster care as a kid. She was sexually abused, and not believed or supported. She was sexually abused by the system as an adult. She was trying to make the life she was given workable but I don't think anyone really could. So she ended it all. You don't need to invoke a mental illness for that. Ordinary garden variety "I can't get this life to work" will do. I mean, people expected her to thrive in a psychologically unhealthy environment. And she was gifted, so she would have felt it more. Lots of gifted sensitive people from dysfunctional backgrounds die young in Hollywood. It's a cliche.


According to something I read, written by someone who lived with her and knew her intimately, her emotions were quite up and down and she was quite "hysterical". However, this was a certain period in her life where maybe she had a lot of pressures....I imagine her life wasn´t easy, as you say. Or she could have been emotional, or had bad pms- one never knows. Yeah, I guess I just wrote that because the article implied that she had a big problem with emotions and depression, and I had read that before- but who knows? It could be attributable to anything, really. Anyway, it´s hard to diagnose someone posthumously....and people tend to see what they want to see.


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11 Jan 2009, 10:43 am

I believe Roger Bannister was a very high functioning individual with AS. A a child, he was very smart, a loner, liked things that moved, and said he found it easier to run than to walk. He said he walked awkwardly as if he had springs in his knees. He was always advanced in his studies, and began Oxford at the age of 17, qualifying as a doctor at age 25. He later went on to become a neurologist. He was very interested in medicine from an early age and read medical books at the age of 12.

He seems to be one of the most successful all-around people with AS, if he has it. He defied the stereotype of the unathletic Asperger Syndrome individual by excelling in running and becoming the first person to break four minutes for the mile. He has been married for over 50 years, has four children and 14 grandchildren. He is still physically active at almost 80 years of age, walking regularly.



LizardQueen
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18 Nov 2009, 8:01 pm

This list is the best list of famous autistic people that you will find on the internet, because it is comprehensive with 140 names on it, and the inclusion of every name in this list is backed up with at least one published biography, book, journal paper, journalistic article or mass media broadcast. This list is not just the result of the idle speculations of some twit who has control a web site and an afternoon to fill in, or the biased work of some Wikipedian who has an agenda. This list attempts to document the entire phenomenon of famous dead people who are thought to have had AS and living people who have claimed to be autistic to any degree or who are diagnosed with AS. This list is based on the writing and work of countless authors, journos, researchers and broadcasters. This list has a references list a mile long that is divided up into categories, in fact it would be useful just as a bibliography or a starting point for research about individual famous people. You want to read everything that was written about the controversy about whether Janet Frame had HFA? A good starting point for your research might be the references section of this list. This list also attempts to show how the arts, sciences, literature philosophy, music and many other fields of human endeavour have been shaped and created by autistic minds. One cannot over-estimate the importance of the cultural and scientific contributions of living and dead people who are or who were probably autistic. Many autistic people are marginalized from our societies, but it is also true that many of the people who are at the centre of public, academic and artistic life are also on the autistic spectrum, and this has always been the case.

One thing that some people might not like about this list is that it is not limited to people who have been formally diagnosed with AS or autism. The idea that a formal clinical diagnosis is definitive proof that a person is autistic, and the idea that a formal diagnosis is the only valid evidence that a person is autistic are both stupid ideas. Many kids these days are given AS or "ASD" as a clinical diagnosis for purely pragmatic reasons, and I can think of many people who have all been given highly questionable or controversial formal diagnoses of autism. It is also true that detailed and well-researched biographies can provide good evidence that long-dead people were on the autstic spectrum, even if the author of the biography did not set out to show such a thing. You can delve into the many books on the subjects of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett and find many clues that Barrett was autistic and also experienced synesthesia, even in books that were written from the point of view that Barrett was a schizophrenic acid casualty rather than an autist or a synaesthete. There is also the issue that diagnostic categories have changed hugely during this and the last century. We cannot expect to find any famous people from my generation or earlier who were given the label of "Asperger syndrome" as a child, because such a label did not exist back then. One would expect autistic people of my age or older to have been given any number of stigmatizing labels during childhood, formally or informally - "childhood schizophrenia", "subnormal", "autistic", "schiziod personality disorder", "emotionally disturbed", "speech delay", "victim of a refrigerator mother" etc. Autistic people of my age might also have been given no label at all when they were kids. We need to interpret biographical information about famous people in the light of this knowledge.

At the end of the list there is a listing of the credentials of some of the professional and academic authors of many of the documents in the references section. But wait, there's more! The list also has a sub-list of references about the interesting and much-debated question of whether Mozart had Tourette's or whatever else he might have had. This list is regularly updated and improved. It is the mother of all famous aspies lists. And at the same blog you can also find a list of famous synaesthetes.

The name of this list is:

A referenced list of 140 famous or important people diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition or subject of published speculation about whether they are or were on the autistic spectrum

It can be found on the blog Incorrect Pleasures . Google it and I'm sure you will find it. Unfortunately I am not allowed to post the internet adress of this list on this forum.



Aussie_74
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22 Nov 2009, 9:08 am

My pick would be former Australian Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. My Aspie housemate thinks our current PM Kevin Rudd is one of us too.

Since they're both still kicking it'd be great if one or both were diagnosed as we need all the positive publicity we can get in this country. Why is it that every time one of us gets arrested our media portrays us like we're all axe murderers? :x

It's enough to make me want to sharpen my axe :lol:



MoonShinePie
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25 Jan 2012, 11:49 pm

I have never heard it been said before, but I think that Rolf Harris has aspergers.



Madao
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26 Jan 2012, 3:23 am

Fictional: Sherlock Holmes (speculated Aspergers). :D
This series of articles explains it better then I could: The Slumber of Feelings (a study of autism and BBC’s “Sherlock”) [Master Post]



Meistersinger
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18 Jul 2012, 9:09 pm

millie wrote:
Morgana wrote:
Yeah, somehow I can´t believe Marilyn Monroe would have AS...pretty funny, yes... :lol:

who knows?
but i cannot see why the possibility is so funny.
to me it is plausible....That is...if i were interested in pondering the lives of celebrities. (see my jett travolta posts......)


This list reminds me of what has been going on in musicology for the past 40 years. So-called "historians" attempting to "psychoanalyze" why a composer wrote in a particular manner.

As for post-diagnosing someone who is already deceased: GET A HOLD OF REALITY! YOU CAN'T BE 100% POSITIVE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY DECEASED! Retroactive diagnosis really gets me mad, as a historian and musicologist.



Ganondox
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18 Jul 2012, 10:29 pm

Every single famous person with a personality. There.


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Shellfish
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19 Jul 2012, 7:09 am

Elvis, really?


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20 Jul 2012, 3:47 am

No modern day noteworthy people?



ravenloft68
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07 Oct 2012, 7:30 am

I believe Cliff Stoll (Astronomer, Author of "The Cuckoo's Egg") has let's say, some very pronounced mannerisms of AS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk

Wouldn't you agree? I could be wrong though.

As a computer geek, I am a HUGE fan of his book "The Cuckoo's Egg". It's still a thrilling read!


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The_Walrus
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07 Oct 2012, 7:38 am

The reasons suggested for Socrates might have been bad, but I actually think he's a great shout. This is a guy everyone (okay, not everyone) wanted to kill because he kept asking questions.



Stoek
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08 Aug 2014, 12:34 am

Woodpecker wrote:
About Peter the Great, What evidence exists to suggest that he had AS.

The cutting off of your wife's lover's head and forcing your wife to keep it in a bottle of alcohol could be something which an angry NT man might do. I know that today if you discover your partner is cheating on you, you are not allowed to kill people becuase it is wrong to commit murder.

But years ago if you discovered your wife was cheating on you then a duel was one way some people would deal with it. If a NT man was a brutal king and thus able to get away with it then he might do something like that.


Theres actually quite a bit moreso than any king I can think of.

He was obsessed with ships, armies, and western europe.

To an extreme point, that he was hated by the russian nobility.

Initially he was seen as a child trying to live out obsessive fantasies.

Had a toy army, toy navy etc.

Pretty much his whole career was based on the idea that he wanted to play with ships.

He completely rejected political status, detested politics unless it helped him get boats.

Was known to be very shy, and politically very awkward.

He went to the extreme of visiting western europe while trying to pretend he wasnt the king. All so nothing could get in the way of his desire to learn ship building.

If he wasnt an aspies he was bloody close to the spectrum.