Mental Health Notes

Celebrities And Schizophrenia

by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes on June 12th, 2008

This post is part of Celebrity Health Week at the b5media Health & Wellness Channel. For more information about Celebrity Health Week posts here at Mental Health Notes, visit Introducing Celebrity Health Week: Celebrities And Mental Illness.

In this Celebrity Health Week post, we’ll take a look at some celebrities who have battled schizophrenia - or had, in the case of the deceased. We’ll look at actors and actresses, musicians, writers, and other well-known figures.

Please note that I am not an authority on celebrities and mental illness. For a celebrity to be on this list, he or she or a spouse or reliable family member must have publicly discussed - verbally or otherwise - his or her mental illness, or, in the case of the deceased, professionals must have addressed it later on.

Read on!

• Tom Harrell - Famous Jazz musician.
• Meera Popkin - Broadway star (think Cats and Miss Saigon).
• John Nash - Mathematician, Noble Prize winner, and subject of A Beautiful Mind.
• Eduard Einstein - Albert Einstein’s son.
• Lionel Aldridge - Former defensive end for the Green Bay Packers.
• Peter Green - Founder of Fleetwood Mac.
• Syd Barrett - Pink Floyd member until 1968.
• Alexander “Skip” Spence - Member of the 1960’s rock band Moby Grape as well as Jefferson Airplane.
• Bob Mosley - Another member of Moby Grape.
• James Beck Gordon (Jim Gordon) - Famous drummer who played with John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, and Joan Baez until schizophrenia took hold.
• Jack Kerouac - Beat generation author.
• Rose Williams - Tennessee Williams’s sister.

Note that this is not a comprehensive list of celebrities who have battled schizophrenia; it’s merely a list of the celebrities for whom I’ve found information. If you know of any others - and can provide credible sources - feel free to leave them in the comments.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information about schizophrenia as well as information about celebrities and suicide.

Image: Newscom

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POSTED IN: Famous Folk, Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenia, Sites of Interest