Supporting Asperger Families in Essex
26 February 2007
A recent article in The Independent (8 Jan), reported on the untimely suicide of Nikki Bacharach –daughter of composer Burt Bacharach and actress Angie Dickinson. “She quietly and peacefully committed suicide to escape the ravages of her brain brought on by Aspergers”, Angie Dickinson and Burt Bacharach’s statement read. “She loved kitties, and earthquakes, glacial calving, meteor showers, science, blue skies and sunsets, and Tahiti. She was one of the most beautiful creatures created on this earth, and she is now in the white light, at peace.”
Whilst this article was quite sad, it also celebrated a number of celebrities who have been diagnosed with AS over history including, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Cambridge-based autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen has analysed the behaviour of the two men: Newton hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat….if no one turned up to this lectures, he gave them anyway, talking to an empty room. Meanwhile, Einstein as a child was a loner, and repeated sentences obsessively until he was 17.
Most of us have known about Einstein and Newton as famous members of the Aspie community. What the article also highlighted were some new “famous sufferers” including: Gary Numan (electronic pop pioneer known for his top hit “Cars”); Satoshi Tajiri (creator of Pokemon); David Bellamy (naturalist and TV presenter); and Vernon Smith (Nobel-prize winning economist). Other historical figures of note, speculated to have had Asperger Syndrome include: Hans Christian Andersen, Béla Bartók, Glenn Gould, Thomas Jefferson, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Rennie Mackintosh, Michelangelo, Alan Turing, and Andy Warhol (among others). What an impressive list of highly creative people!
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