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Famous People with Bipolar Disorder

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
March 6, 1475 - February 18, 1564

He was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, poet and architect. He is famous for creating the fresco ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one of the most stupendous works in all of Western art, as well as the Last Judgment over the altar, and "The Martyrdom of St. Peter and "The Conversion of St. Paul in the Vatican's Cappella Paolina.

Among his many sculptures are those of the Pieta and David, again, sublime masterpieces of their field, as well as the Virgin, Bacchus, Moses, Rachel, Leah, and members of the Medici family

Mary Wollstonecraft

(April 27, 1759 - September 10, 1797

Mary was the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Her husband William Godwin was one of the most prominent atheists of his day, and a forefather of the anarchist movement..

In 1778, when she was nineteen, Mary Wollstonecraft left home to take a situation as companion with a rich tradesman's widow at Bath. After two years she returned home to nurse her sick mother, who died after long suffering, wholly dependent on her daughter Mary's constant care. The mother's last words were often quoted by Mary Wollstonecraft in her own last years of distress-"A little patience, and all will be over."

Then she went up the river to drown herself. She paced the road at Putney on an October night, in 1795, in heavy rain, until her clothes were drenched, that she might sink more surely, and then threw herself from the top of Putney Bridge, leaving a note for Imlay; "Let my wrongs sleep with me".

She was rescued, and lived on with deadened spirit. She had lost everything except her child; her faith in revolution, in the virtue of the people and in the possibilities of an independent woman's life Early in 1797 she was married to William Godwin, a philosopher who was notorious for his rejection of romance and marriage.

On September 10, 1797, at the age of thirty-eight, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin succumbed to puerperal fever after the birth of her daughter. Having survived so many difficult situations, she died when she had so much to live for.

She is rightly remembered as one of the founders of modern feminism

Ludwig van Beethoven

baptized December 17, 1770 - March 26, 1827

Beethoven was a German composer, the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest of composers

Beethoven's career as a composer is usually divided into Early, Middle, and Late periods.

In the Early period, he is seen as emulating his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart at the same time exploring new directions and gradually expanding the scope and ambition of his work

The Middle period began shortly after Beethoven's personal crisis centering around deafness, and is noted for large-scale works expressing heroism and struggle; these include many of the most famous works of classical music

Beethoven's Late period began around 1816 and lasted until Beethoven ceased to compose in 1826. The late works are greatly admired for their intellectual depth and their intense, highly personal expression.

Beethoven's personal life was troubled. Around age 28 he started to become deaf, a calamity which led him for some time to contemplate suicide He was attracted to unattainable (married or aristocratic) women, whom he idealized; he never married. A period of low productivity around 1812 -1816 is thought by some scholars to have been the result of depression Beethoven quarreled, often bitterly, with his relatives and others, and frequently behaved badly to other people. He moved often from dwelling to dwelling, and had strange personal habits such as wearing filthy clothing while washing compulsively. He often had financial troubles.

It is common for listeners to perceive an echo of Beethoven's life in his music, which often depicts struggle followed by triumph; this description is often applied to Beethoven's creation of masterpieces in the face of his severe personal difficulties.

Beethoven's health had always been bad, and it failed entirely in 1826. His death in the following year is usually attributed to liver disease.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
October 21, 1772 -July 25, 1834

Coleridge was an English poet, critic, and philosopher and, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and as one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In 1800 he returned to England and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland Soon, however, he fell into a vicious circle of lack of confidence in his poetic powers, ill-health, and increased opium dependency.

From 1804 to 1806, Coleridge lived in Malta and travelled in Sicily and Italy, and it was during this period that Coleridge became a full-blown opium addict, using the drug as a substitute for the lost vigour and creativity of his youth.

In 1816 Coleridge, his addiction worsening, his spirits depressed, and his family alienated, took residence in the home of the physician James Gillman, in Highgate He died in Highgate on July, 1834

Meriwether Lewis
August 18, 1774 - October 11,1809

He was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator; he is best known for his role as the leader of the Corps of Discovery.

Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia (near Charlottesville) and moved with his family to when he was ten. At thirteen he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors.

He was shot at a tavern called Grinder's Stand about 70 miles (110 km) from Nashville, Tennessee, on the Natchez Trace, while enroute to Washington; his wrists had been cut, and he had been shot in the head and chest. Whether his death was from suicide (as is widely believed) or murder (as contended by his family) has never been conclusively determined; however, it should be noted that he allegedly attempted to jump into the Mississippi River and drown shortly before his death, and also was extremely depressed

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, Lord Byron
January 22, 1788 - April 19, 1824

He was the most widely read English language poet of his day. His best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. The latter remained incomplete on his death.

Byron's fame rests not only on his writings, but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, debts, separation, allegations of incest and his eventual death from fever after he travelled to fight on the Greek side in the Greek War of Independence

Thomas Lovell Beddoes
June 30, 1803 - January 26, 1849

He was an English poet and dramatist. He was son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes , a friend of Coleridge, and Anna, sister of Maria Edgeworth. In 1822 he wrote The Brides' Tragedy, an blank verse drama that was published and well reviewed.

In 1824 he went to Göttingen to study medicine. He was expelled, and then went to Würzburg to complete his training. At this period he became involved with radical politics. He was deported from Bavaria in 1833, and had to leave Zürich, where he had settled, in 1840.

He continued to write, but published nothing. His play Death's Jest-Book was published after his death by friends in 1850, and his Collected Poems in 1851.

He led an itinerant life after leaving Switzerland, returning to England only in 1846, before going back to Germany. He became increasingly disturbed, and committed suicide in 1849

Hans Christian Andersen
April 2, 1805 - August 4, 1875

Hans Christian Anderson was a Danish author and poet famous for his fairy tales - one of the most well-known authors of fairy-tales. His works have been translated all over the world. He also wrote plays, novels, poems, travel books, and several autobiographies. Although many of his stories are upbeat and entertaining, there is an element of tragedy in many.

According to one writer, "It may also be noted that part of what makes some of the tales so compelling is Andersen's identification with the unfortunate and the outcast. A strong autobiographical element runs through his sadder tales; throughout his life he perceived himself as an outsider, and, never satisfied that he was completely accepted, he suffered deeply in his closest personal relationships."

Ralph Waldo Emerson
May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882

Emerson was a famous American essayist and one of America's most influential thinkers and writers.

Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Unitarian minister and would later become a Unitarian minister himself. Emerson eventually, however, broke away from the doctrine of his superiors and formulated and expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay Nature.

After Emerson graduated from Harvard, he assisted his brother in a school for young ladies established in their mother's house; when his brother went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, eventually studying divinity himself, and emerging as a Unitaritan minister. A dispute with church officials over the administration of the Communion service led to his resignation. About the same time, his young wife and one true love, Miss Elena Louisa Tucker, died in April of 1831.

In 1836, Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded The Dial, a periodical which served as a vehicle for the Transcendental movement, although the first issue did not appear until July of 1840. Meanwhile, Emerson published his first book, Nature, in September of 1836

Robert Alexander Schumann
June 8, 1810 - July 29, 1856

Schumann was a German composer and pianist in the Romantic period of Classical music.

Probably no composer ever rivaled Schumann in concentrating his energies on one form of music at a time. At first all his creative impulses were translated into pianoforte music, then followed the miraculous year of the songs. In 1841 he wrote two of his four symphonies. The year 1842 was devoted to the composition of chamber music, and includes the pianoforte quintet (op. 44), now one of his best known and most admired works. In 1843 he wrote Paradise and the Pen, his first essay at concerted vocal music.

On the 27th of February, 1854 he threw himself into the Rhine. He was rescued by some boatmen, but when brought to land was determined to be quite insane. He suffered from syphilis, that had not been properly treated and that developed into its tertiary stage. He was taken to a private asylum in Endenich near Bonn, and remained there until his death on the 29th of July 1856. He was buried at Bonn, and in 1880 a statue by A. Donndorf was erected on his tomb.. He experienced periods of great productivity and creativity, while from the mid-1840s on he suffered periodic attacks of severe depression and nervous exhaustion, and contemplated or attempted suicide a number of times.

Florence Nightingale
May 12, 1820 - August 13, 1910

The Lady With The Lamp - was the pioneer of modern nursing

Inspired by what she understood to be a divine calling (first experienced in 1837 at the age of 17 at Embley Park and later throughout her life), Nightingale made a commitment to nursing, a career with a poor reputation and filled mostly by poorer women

The world's most famous nurse is believed to have suffered from a bipolar disorder, and she once said God had called her to her work and that she heard voices.

Nightingale suffered from a bipolar disorder that caused long periods of depression and remarkable bursts of productivity.

"Florence heard voices and experienced a number of severe depressive episodes in her teens and early 20s - symptoms consistent with the onset of bipolar disorder"

Charles Pierre Baudelaire

April 9, 1821-August 31, 1867

He was one of the most influential French poets. He was also an important critic and translator Called 'the father of modern criticism,' who shocked his contemporaries with his visions of lust and decay. Baudelaire was the first to equate modern, artificial, and decadent. In Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863, The Painter of Modern Life) Baudelaire argued in favor of artificiality, stating that vice is natural in that it is selfish, while virtue is artificial because we must restrain our natural impulses in order to be good. The snobbish aesthete, the dandy was for Baudelaire the ultimate hero and the best proof of an absolutely purposeless existence. He is a gentleman who never becomes vulgar and always preserves the cool smile of the stoic

Baudelaire's confrontation of depression with the consumption of drugs such as opium, hashish and alcohol was a major influence on his work. Many of his poems were influenced by his interest in "les correspondances", or synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is the mixing of the senses, that is, the ability to smell colors or see sounds. He wrote several poems about the subject itself, such as "Correspondances", and used imagery and symbolism based on the experiences of synaesthesiacs. In general, Baudelaire was a sensualist, in love with sensations, and he tried to experience them and express them in abundance.

Baudelaire was affected by bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression

Leo Nikolayevitch Tolstoy
September 9 (August 28, O.S), 1828 - November 20 (November 7, O.S.), 1910

Tolstoy was a Russian novelist, reformer, and moral thinker, notable for his influence on Russian literature and politics. As a count, he was a member of the Tolstoy family of Russian nobility.

Tolstoy was one of the giants of 19th century Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and many shorter works, including the novellas The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Hadji Murad

Tolstoy's private life is well known in Russia. He lived his entire life in Yasnaya Polyana. On September 23, , the 34 year old Tolstoy married Sonya Andreyevna Behrs, a girl of 18. Their marriage has been described by A.N.Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history, and was marked from the outset by Tolstoy on the eve of his marriage giving his diaries of his bachelor escapades to Sonya, which he made her read. These detailed Tolstoy's sexual relations with his serfs. He even admits to taking a young lady's virtue, who was forever disgraced by the encounter (incredibly, he used this as the basis of Resurrection).

His relationship with his wife further deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. In one journal entry, she writes of him becoming increasingly suicidal, unable to reconcile his faith with the material world. Sonya bore him 13 children, 7 of whom survived to adulthood.

He died of pneumonia at Astapovo station on Nov.20,1910 after leaving home in the middle of winter at the age of 82

Charles John Huffam Dickens
February 7, 1812 - June 9, 1870

Dickens, pen-name "Boz ", was an English novelist of the Victorian era. The popularity of his books/short stories during his lifetime and to the present is demonstrated by the fact that none of his novels have ever gone out of print

Dickens separated from his wife in 1858. In Victorian times divorce was almost unthinkable particularly for someone as famous as Charles Dickens and he continued to maintain her in a house for the next twenty years until she died. Although they were initially happy together, Catherine did not seem to share quite the same boundless energy for life which Dickens had. Her job of looking after their ten children and the pressure of living with and keeping house for a world famous novelist certainly did not help. Catherine's sister Georgina moved in to help her but there were rumors that Charles was romantically linked to his sister-in-law. An indication of his marital dissatisfaction was when in 1855 he went to meet his first love Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as well but she seems to have fallen short of Dickens' romantic memory of her.

He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."

Samuel Langhorne Clemens - Mark Twain
November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910

Mark Twain was a famous and popular American humorist, writer and lecturer

At his peak, he was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. William Faulkner wrote he was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs." His pseudonym was derived from the shout used to mark how deep the water was for river boats - "by the mark, twain" (in other words, mark two fathoms).

In his later life, Twain was a very depressed man, but still capable. Twain was able to respond "The report of my death is an exaggeration" in the New York Journal, June 2nd 1897. He lost 3 out of 4 of his children, and his beloved wife, Olivia Langdon, before his death in 1910. He also had some very bad times with his businesses. His publishing company ended up going bankrupt, and he lost thousands of dollars on one typesetting machine that was never finished. He also lost a great deal of revenue on royalties from his books being plagiarized before he even had a chance to publish them himself.

Twain himself died less than one year later. He wrote in 1909, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." And so he did.

Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson
November 13, 1850 - December 3, 1894

Stevenson was a novelist, poet, and travel writer.

Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a successful engineer, and Margaret Balfour. They were both very religious. Robert gave up the religion of his parents whilst at studying at Edinburgh University, but the teaching that he received as a child continued to influence him.

Although ill with tuberculosis from childhood, Stevenson had a full life. He began his education as an engineer (and his lighthouse designs were much praised). At the age of 18 he dropped the name Balfour and changed his middle name from Lewis to Louis (but retaining the original pronunciation); from this time on he began styling himself "RLS". He turned to the law because of poor health, but he never practiced. He ended as a tribal leader (called by his tribe Tusitala) and plantation owner at his residence "Vailima " in Samoa, all this in addition to his literary career.

Stevenson's novels of adventure, romance, and horror are of considerable psychological depth and have continued in popularity long after his death, both as books and as films.

Stevenson died of a brain haemorrhage in Vailima, aged 44. In his will, he bequeathed his birthday to a little girl who had been born on Christmas Day.

Vincent van Gogh
March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890

Van Gogh was a Dutch painter, generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. He produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness (possibly bipolar disorder, and committed suicide. He had little success during his lifetime, but his posthumous fame grew rapidly, especially following a showing of 71 of van Gogh's paintings in Paris on March 17, 1901 (11 years after his death). Despite Van Gogh's early-age death, he became a heavily popular painter with extremely popular paintings.

A few of his most famous paintings are Starry Night, a Self Portrait, Sunflowers and the Potato Eater. He wrote to his brother Theo –

"I realize that these big, long canvases are hard to sell, but later on people will see that there's fresh air and good humour in them."

Vincent van Gogh
Letter 462
Summer, 1887

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG (Order_of_the_Garter), OM (Order_of_Merit), CH (Order_of_the_Companions_of_Honour), FRS (Royal_Society)

November 30, 1874 - January 24, 1965

Churchill was a British politician, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II. At various times an author, soldier, journalist, legislator and painter, Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in British and world history.

Many attribute some of Churchill’s extraordinary abilities to his being affected by bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression. Churchill often referenced the depression he was experiencing, referring to it as “his black dog”.

Hermann Hesse

July 2, 1877 - August 9, 1962

Hesse was a German author, and the winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in literature. He is most famous for his novels Steppenwolf and Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game).

Hesse's interests in existential, spiritual, and mystical themes and Buddhist and Hindu philosophy may be seen in his works. German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, whose main theme deals with man's breaking out of the established modes of civilization to find his essential spirit. He was hospitalized and attempted suicide at least once in his life.

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

November 10, 1879 - December 5, 1931

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet born in Springfield, Illinois, known as the "Prairie Troubador."

Lindsay spent much of his life walking across the country, performing and distributing copies of his poetry in exchange for bed and board. Lindsay's poems were very rhythmic, and he performed them almost melodramatically -- chanting, shouting, gesturing, and even singing rather than merely reciting.

Lindsay married Elizabeth Connor in 1925 when he was 45 and she was 23. They had two children, Susan in 1926 and Nicholas in 1927. They settled in Vachel's family home in Springfield in 1929.

The poet's career declined during the 1920s. He began to believe that people were only impressed with his powerful performances, not the poetry itself.

Lindsay became severely depressed as both his creativity and his popularity waned; he committed suicide in 1931 by drinking poison.

Virginia Woolf

January 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941

Virginia Woolf was a British author and feminist. Between the world wars, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, Woolf was brought up and educated in a classically Victorian household at 22 Hyde Park Gate. In 1895, following the death of her mother, she had the first of several nervous breakdowns. She later indicated in an autobiographical account, "Moments of Being," that she and her sister, Vanessa Bell had been sexually abused by their half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth. Following the death of her father (Sir Leslie Stephen), a well-known editor and literary critic in 1904, she and her sister, Vanessa, moved to a home in Bloomsbury, forming the initial kernel for the intellectual circle known as the Bloomsbury group. While nowhere near a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals, Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with Bloomsbury, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, (among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism.

She began writing professionally in 1905, initially for the Times Literary Supplement. In 1912 she married Leonard Woolf, a civil servant and political theorist. Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915. She went on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular success. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. She is hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century and one of the foremost Modernists.

Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness, the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters, and the various possibilities of fractured narrative and chronology. She has, in the words of E.M. Forster, pushed the English language "a little further against the dark," and her literary achievements and creativity are influential even today.

On March 28, 1941, Woolf filled her pockets with stones, and drowned herself in the River Ouse, near her home in Rodmell. She left a suicide note for her husband: "I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we cant go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness... I can't fight it any longer, I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work" (The Letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. VI, p. 481).

Sara Teasdale

August 8, 1884 - January 29, 1933

Sara Teasdale was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sarah Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sara's major themes were love, nature's beauty, and death, and her poems were much loved during the early 20th century. In 1918 she won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize (the forerunner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America for her volume, Love Songs. Her style and lyricism are well illustrated in her poem, Spring Night (1915), from that collection.

On the morning of January 29, 1933, in her New York City apartment, Sara took an overdose of sleeping pills, lay down in a warm bath, fell asleep, and never woke up again. Her last, and some say her finest, collection of verse, Strange Victory, was published posthumously that same year.

Cole Porter
June 9, 1891 - October 15, 1964

Cole Porter was an American composer and songwriter. His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate (1948 (based on Shakespeare 's The Taming of the Shrew, Fifty Million Frenchmen and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day," "I Get a Kick Out of You," and "I've Got You Under My Skin." He was noted for his sophisticated lyrics, clever rhymes, and complex forms. Irving Berlin used to refer to "Night and Day" as "that long, long song."

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

September 24, 1896-December 21, 1940

Fitzgerald was a Jazz Age novelist.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century. The self-styled spokesman of the "Lost Generation " -- the Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I -- crafted five novels and dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age with remarkable emotional honesty. His heroes -- handsome, confident, and doomed -- blaze brilliantly before exploding ("Show me a hero," he once said, "and I will write you a tragedy"), and his heroines are beautiful, intricate, and alluring. Fitzgerald himself suffered from bipolar disorder

WILLIAM FAULKNER

September 25, 1897 - July 6, 1962

Faulkner was a novelist from the Southern United States. Though his works are sometimes challenging or even difficult, he is generally regarded as one of America's most important fiction writers.

William Faulkner wrote works of psychological drama and emotional depth, typically with long serpentine prose and high, meticulously-chosen diction. Like most prolific authors, he suffered the envy and scorn of others

Faulkner was known rather infamously for his drinking problem as well, and throughout his life was known to be an alcoholic (Covering his episodes of depression and mania?) The American novelist won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1949. He is often lauded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Novels include, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!

Ernest Hemingway

July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961

Ernest Hemingway was an American author. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho.

The very last years, 1960 and 1961, were marked by severe paranoia. He feared FBI agents would be after him if Cuba turned to the Russians, that the "Feds" (Burgess (9.), p.??) would be checking his bank account, and that they wanted to arrest him for gross immorality and carrying alcohol. (The FBI was in fact surveilling Hemingway due to his activities in Cuba.)

Hemingway was upset by perfectly normal photographs in his Dangerous Summer article. He was receiving treatment in Ketchum for high blood pressure and liver problems - and also electroconvulsive therapy for depression and his continued paranoia.

By all accounts, Ernest Hemingway was a tormented man, much like his father before him, never at ease with himself. Drinking, insomnia, violent outbursts, a sense of dread, perpetual movement and traveling, and great guilt over his own roguish behavior--four wives, many liaisons--marked his personal life. Biographer Kenneth Lynn reports that by the late 1940s, when Papa, as he had long called himself, was in his late forties, "fantasies of suicide thronged his mind, intermingled with fears of insanity."

Helped by his huge physical presence, Hemingway had concocted the myth of his own toughness. "What is more likely the truth of his own odyssey," Norman Mailer has written, "is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner landscape was a nightmare." Although his own depression wasn't formally diagnosed until his last, paranoid days, because getting professional help went against the Hemingway persona, mental instability and manic-depressive personalities inhabit virtually every branch of the family tree; indeed Hemingway attempted suicide in the spring of 1961, and received treatment again, but this was unable to prevent his suicide on July 2, 1961 - at 5:00 AM, he died as a result of a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head.

He is interred in the Ketchum Cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho

(In 1996, his granddaughter, actress Margaux Hemingway, would take her own life; and is interred in the same cemetery.)

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby
May 3, 1903 - October 14, 1977

Bing Crosby was a popular American singer and actor whose career spanned multiple generations. His biggest musical hit was his recording of the Irving Berlin classic "White Christmas ", which he first sang in 1942, and which became one of the best-selling recordings of all time. He collected 21 other gold records, including "I'll Be Home for Christmas", "Too-Ra-Lo-Ra-Loo-Ral" and "Swinging on a Star". In 1962 he became the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His popularity as a singer was matched only by his success as an actor. He appeared in dozens of movies from the 1930s -1960s, and received the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1944.

Crosby was a keen amateur golfer who appeared in many charity events. It was after playing a round of 18 holes at La Moraleja Golf Club outside of Madrid in 1977 that he collapsed and died from a massive heart attack at the age of 73 or 74. Crosby had been married twice (his second wife, actress Kathryn Grant, being considerably younger), and effectively had two families, his children from the marriages being of different generations. After his death, his eldest son from his first marriage, Gary, wrote a controversial memoir (Going My Own Way) depicting him as an autocratic and abusive father. Two of his children, Lindsay and Dennis, committed suicide.

Crosby recorded a version of Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie just one month prior to his death. The duet went on to attain cult status and charted well in countries around the world.

There is some uncertainty about the year in which Bing Crosby was born. Most reference works give his year of birth as 1903, but his gravestone - on the instructions of his family - gives his birth year as 1904. On his passing, Bing Crosby was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Burgess Meredith

November 16, 1909 - September 9, 1997

Meredith was an American actor, perhaps best known for playing the Penguin on the television series Batman. The Penguin's trademark quacking laugh was actually Meredith's attempt to cover up coughing fits, as his part required him to smoke, something he had not done in years. He admitted in an interview it sounded more like a duck than a penguin.

Meredith played Rocky Balboa 's trainer Mickey in the Rocky film series, and in his twilight years was Jack Lemmon 's character's father in Grumpy Old Men.

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams

March 26, 1911 - February 25, 1983

Better known by the pen name Tennessee Williams, he was a noted playwright. The nickname "Tennessee" was given to him by schoolmates in St. Louis for his southern accent. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat On a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. Genre critics maintain that Williams writes in the Southern Gothic style. For many years Williams lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana

Tennessee was close to his sister, Rose Williams, who was perhaps the greatest influence on him. She was an elegant, slim beauty who was subject to severe nervous attacks and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Mentally ill and emotionally disturbed, she spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals. After various unsuccessful attempts at therapy, her parents eventually allowed a prefrontal lobotomy in an effort to treat her. The operation, performed in 1943, in Washington, D.C. went badly, and Rose remained incapacitated for the rest of her life.

Rose's failed lobotomy was a hard blow to Tennessee, who never forgave his parents for allowing the operation. It may have been one of the factors that drove him to alcoholism.

In his memoirs, the playwright claims he became sexually active as a teenager; his biographer Lyle Leverich maintained this actually occurred later, in his late 20s. His physical and emotional relationship with his secretary, Frank Merlo, lasted from 1947 until Merlo's death from cancer in 1961, and provided the stability during which Williams produced his most enduring works. Merlo was a balance to many of Williams's depressions, especially the fear that like his sister, Rose, he would become insane. The death of his lover drove Williams into a deep decade-long depression.

Tennessee Williams was the victim of a gay-bashing in January 1979 in Key West, being beaten by five teenaged boys, but was not seriously injured. The episode was part of a spate of anti-gay violence that had occurred after a local Baptist minister ran an anti-gay newspaper ad. Some of his literary critics spoke ill of the "excesses" present in his work, but these were, for the most part, merely attacks on Williams' sexuality.

Tennessee Williams died after he choked on a bottle cap at the age of 71. However, some (among them is Dakin Williams, his brother) believe he was murdered. Alternately, the police report from his death seems to indicate that drugs were involved, as it states that pills were found under his body.

Jackson Pollock

January 28, 1912 - August 11, 1956

Pollock was an influential American artist and a major force in the abstract expressionism movement.

He was born in Cody, Wyoming, and later moved to New York in 1929, where he studied under Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock moved away from figurative art, and developed techniques of splashing and dripping his paint onto canvas (action painting. Pollock was dubbed "Jack the Dripper" due to his painting style.

Considered a “central figure of American Abstract Expressionism,” Pollock’s art was an engaging collection of textures and lines as he let paint drip onto a canvas which he placed on the floor. Rejecting the need for outward inspiration, Pollock attempted to allow his own unconscious guide his work. The chaotic results reveal a complex soul of interwoven needs.

His primary needs were the usual ones for love and affirmation. Addicted to alcohol and struggling with a bipolar disorder, Pollock was first in a codependent relationship with his brother Sande). Though his codependency mimicked love, its dysfunctional dynamics left Pollock unable to find his way. Pollock's career was cut short when he died in a car crash in 1956 at the age of only 44.

Vivien Leigh

November 5, 1913-July 7, 1967

Leigh was an English actress who was born Vivian Mary Hartley in Darjeeling, India. She and her parents later moved to England, where young Leigh grew up. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England, along with fellow actress-to-be Maureen O'Sullivan.

In 1951 Leigh won a second Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

By the early 1960s Leigh had suffered two miscarriages, and the severity of the tuberculosis was incapacitating. She had also been plagued by manic-depression for some time, which was believed to be a factor in the failure to cure her ailment. In 1960, she and Olivier divorced on supposedly friendly terms. Leigh continued to keep a framed photograph of him on her bedside table, even while living with her companion, actor John Merivale

John Berryman (originally John Smith)

October 25, 1914 - January 7, 1972

John Berryman was an American poet, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and often considered one of the founders of the Confessional school of poetry. He is one of the figures acting as a bridge between the formally loose, socially aware poetry of the Beats and the personal, grieving poetry of Sylvia Plath. He was the author of The Dream Songs, which are both playful, witty, and morbid. Berryman died by suicide in 1972.

As a mature poet, Berryman's alcoholism and depression interfered with his ability to give readings, to speak in public, and to work appropriately. In 1972, Berryman's depression led him to follow the example of his father and to kill himself by jumping from a bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dylan Marlais Thomas

October 27, 1914, Swansea - November 9, 1953, New York City

Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer. He is widely considered to be among the greatest poets of the 20th century; his most famous poems include "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night " and "And Death Shall Have No Dominion ". Thomas gave himself over to his passionately felt emotions, and his writing is often both intensely personal and fiercely lyrical. Thomas, in many ways, was more in alignment with the Romantics than he was with the poets of his era (Auden and Eliot, to name but two).

Dylan Thomas was born in Wales in 1914. He was a neurotic, sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own; he read all of D. H. Lawrence 's poetry, impressed by Lawrence's descriptions of a vivid natural world. Fascinated by language, he excelled in English and reading, but neglected other subjects and dropped out of school at sixteen. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published to great acclaim when he was twenty.

Thomas first visited America in January 1950, at the age of thirty-five. His reading tours of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as new medium for the art, are famous and notorious, for Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the popular American imagination: he was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling. He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life. Tragically, he died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking bout in New York City in 1953.

Bob Dylan chose to be named after him

Robert Lowell

March 1, 1917 -September 12, 1977

Born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr., he was an American Confessionalist poet known for inspiring and teaching several literary superstars of the 1950s and 1960s, including Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath

Mike Wallace

May 9, 1918

Born as Myron Leon Wallace he is an American journalist with a long-running career. He is most well-known to modern audiences as a television correspondent for CBS 's 60 Minutes. He has been with that program since it first aired in 1968. He has also hosted a number of other talk shows including Night Beat. During his career at 60 Minutes he had The Mike Wallace Interviews interviewed a wide range of newsmakers including Johnny Carson, Deng Xiaoping, Ayatollah Khomeini, Kurt Waldheim, Yasir Arafat, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, and Manuel Noriega.

Wallace was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has been married multiple times and had two sons. His oldest son died in a mountain climbing accident in 1961 Chris Wallace, his second son, is also a newscaster.

Mike Wallace has been treated for Bipolar Disorder

Spike Milligan

1918-2002

He was a comic actor and writer, Patron of the MFD.

In a recent poll of British television viewers Spike Milligan was voted "The Funniest Person of the Millennium", yet here in America Spike is so unknown that he probably wouldn't be voted "The Funniest Person Of The Milligans". Eddie Izzard even declared Spike Milligan "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy." Although Izzy was absolutely the coolest guy in Guns N' Roses, Spike Milligan is too funny to be blamed for that wussy "Alternative Comedy"

Jonathon Winters

November 11, 1925

Actor, Editor, Writer, Born in Dayton, Ohio, USA

Jonathan was born in 1925. His father, also Jonathan, was a banker who became an alcoholic after being crushed in the Great Depression. His parents divorced in 1932. Jonathan and his mother then moved to Springfield to live with his grandmother. There his mother remarried and became a radio personality. Jonathan joined the Marines during his senior year of high school. Upon his discharge, he entered Kenyon College & later transferred to Dayton Art Institute. He met his wife, Eileen Schauder, in 1948 and married a month later. They remain married today. They have a son, Jay, who is a contractor, and a daughter, Lucinda, who is a talent scout for movies.

Jonathan got his start in show business by winning a talent contest. This led to a children's TV show in Dayton in 1950. He also then got a game show and a talk show. Denied a requested raise, he & his wife moved to New York with only $56 in their pocket. Two months later, he was getting night club bookings.

Jonathan suffered nervous breakdowns in 1959 and 1961. He made 10 comedy recordings for which he was nominated for the Grammy 10 times and won once

Marilyn Monroe

June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962

Marilyn Munroe was an American actress of the 20th century. Her sizzling screen presence and premature death would make her a perennial sex symbol and later a pop icon

Marilyn Monroe was found dead August 5, 1962 in the bedroom of her Brentwood, California home at age thirty-six from an overdose of barbiturates.

Joe DiMaggio (her ex husband) re-entered her life as her marriage to Miller was ending. On February 4, 1961, she was admitted by her then-psychiatrist into Manhattan 's Payne-Whitney Clinic, reportedly placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed. He got her out six days later, and took her to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. After her release on March 5, she joined him in Florida.

Rosemary Clooney

May 23, 1928 - June 29, 2002

Rosemary was an American popular singer and actress.

In 1945 the Clooney sisters won a spot on Cincinnati's radio station WLW as singers.

In 1951 her record of "Come On-a My House" became a hit, her first of many singles to hit the charts. In 1954 she and Bing Crosby > starred in the movie "White Christmas "

In 1968 she was present at the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, with whom she was a close friend, and the event traumatized her life for years afterward. She had a nervous breakdown and serious drug problems.

In 1986 she sang a duet with Wild Man on "It's a Hard Business".

She had two husbands, José Ferrer (from 1953 until the 1960s) by whom she had five children, including actor,Miguel Ferrer, born in 1955 and Gabriel Ferrer, born 1956, who married Debby Boone, and Dante DePaolo (whom she married in 1996.

Many attribute some of Clooney’s extraordinary abilities to her being affected by bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression.

Anne Sexton

November 9, 1928 -October 4, 1974

Born Anne Gray Harvey, Anne was an American poet and writer Sexton was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1928, and spent most of her life near Boston.

Tragically, she suffered from depression for most of her life; in fact, her poetry was prescribed as a possible remedy and eventual cure for her condition. Sexton's first breakdown took place in 1954,

After a second breakdown in 1955, Anne met Dr. Martin Orne at Glenside Hospital, who encouraged her to take up poetry writing

In 1967, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection, Live or Die.

She committed suicide in 1974, after winning the admiration of Robert Lowell, close friend Maxine Kumin, James Dickey, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sylvia Plath, among others.

Colonel Buzz Aldrin, Ph.D

born January 20, 1930

He is an American pilot and astronaut who became the second man to set foot on the Moon (after Neil Armstrong) during the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned lunar landing.

After the nation's most famous astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, flew to the moon in 1969, he returned to Earth an American icon. But his training as a moonwalker hardly prepared him for fame. Scrutiny on a global scale led to depression, alcoholism and divorce. Over time, he summoned the courage to seek help and work through his difficulties.

Many factors led to his recovery, among them therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous and his marriage to Lois Driggs Cannon. Lois, his third wife, has helped him build a new life. They share a comfortable home in Southern California and drive cars with license plates reading MARS GUY and MOON GAL. Today, he even jokes about his alter ego, Buzz Lightyear

Abbott Hoffman

November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989

He was one of the Chicago Seven and the subject of the Kinky Friedman song, "Dear Abbie."

Author of several books, including; "Steal This Book", "Woodstock Nation: A Talk-Rock Album", "Revolution For the Hell of It", "Soon to be a Major Motion Picture", "Vote!", "Squaredancing in the Ice Age", Preserving Disorder: The Faking of the President 1988", "Steal This Urine Test".

Suffered from bouts of manic depression throughout his life (this may have been a contributing factor in his suicide).

The famous phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" first appeared in print in his book "Revolution For the Hell of It"

Died by suicide.

Kate Millett

September 14, 1934

is an American feminist writer and activist. She is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics. The book offered a comprehensive critique of patriarchy in Western society and literature. In particular, Millett indicted the sexism and heterosexism of renowned novelists D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer, contrasting their perspectives with the dissenting viewpoint of homosexual author Jean Genet

Richard Alva (Dick) Cavett

born November 19, 1936

Born in Gibbon, Nebraska Dick Cavett is a writer, media personality, and a television talk show host known for his conversational style of in-depth and often serious issues discussion. He has openly discussed his bouts with clinical depression in recent years, an illness he has had to deal with since his freshman year at Yale. He was the subject of a 1993 video produced by the Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association called A Patient's Perspective.

He was sued in 1997 by a producer for breach of contract when failing to show up for a nationally syndicated radio program (also called "The Dick Cavett Show"); Cavett's lawyer confirmed to the Associated Press at the time that Cavett left due to a manic-depressive episode.

Charley Frank Pride

March 18, 1938

Born in Sledge, Mississippi to poor sharecroppers, and one of eleven children. Pride has become the only African American to carve out a major career in country music . As a result of his success, he was able to return to Sledge and purchase the cotton farm where he was born.

Pride achieved more than 36 number one country singles and sold over 70 million albums, 31 gold and 4 platinum - including one quadruple platinum. On RCA Records, Charley Pride is second in sales only to Elvis Presley.

"Kiss An Angel Good Morning" was a million-selling crossover single and helped Pride land Country Music Association Awards as Entertainer of the Year in 1971 and Top Male Vocalist in 1971 and 1972.

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III

November 19, 1938

He is an American media mogul > and philanthropist. He is best known for founding CNN and Turner Classic Movies, his failed marriage to Jane Fonda, and his $1 billion pledge to the United Nations

Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business which he took over at the age of 24 after his father's death. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the assemblage of the Turner Broadcasting System His Cable News Network revolutionized news media, coming to the fore covering the space shuttle Challenger disaster in and the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

He is America's largest private landowner, owning approximately two million acres (8,000 km²). He also has the largest private bison herd in the world, with 32,000 head. In 2002, Turner co-founded Ted's Montana Grill, a restaurant chain specializing in burgers made from fresh ground bison meat.

Ted Turner has acknowledged that he has a bipolar affective disorder

Connie Francis

December 12, 1938

From 1958 until 1963, Connie Francis had 25 singles that were top 100 hits in the United States. She recorded her songs in nine languages and became an international star in the late 50s. is an American singer. born in the Italian Seventh Avenue neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey, She is considered the most prolific female rock 'n' roll hit-maker of the early rock era -- the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

In the first half of the 1960s she starred in three additional films -- "Follow the Boys" (1963), "Looking for Love" (1964) and "When the Boys Meet the Girls" (1965).

She has a grown son, Joey, born in 1974, who is a flight instructor.

During the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, she performed for U.S. troops.

In 1960 Francis became the youngest headliner to sing in Las Vegas, where she played 28 days a year for nine years.

Her latest CD "The American Tour" contains performances from recent shows.

Francis' autobiography, "Who's Sorry Now?" was published in 1984.

Francis ended her recording career 1969, returning in 1973 with The Answer, a song written just for her, and soon began performing again. Tragedies followed soon after. In 1974 she was raped in a hotel following a performance in Westbury, New York. Nasal surgery to correct a sensitivity to air conditioning deprived her of her ability to sing professionally for four years. Her brother was murdered in 1981. Francis was diagnosed as manic depressive but resumed her career in 1989 and has continued singing and recording since then.

In late December 2004, Francis headlined in Las Vegas for the first time since 1989.

Mariette Hartley

June 21, 1940

She is an actress and advocate - For seven years, Mariette Hartley and James Garner shared a unique chemistry in their Polaroid commercials. Now Hartley is bringing into sharp focus another kind of chemistry - neurochemistry - that debilitates millions of Americans.

"Bipolar disorder is something that is mine," says Hartley, currently starring in the Broadway production of Cabaret. "And it is very difficult to talk about it. Breaking this silence has been really wrenching for me. Hartley, whose family has a history of suicide because of bipolar disorder went into a kind of depression wondering if she really wanted to talk about all this. I finally decided that education is more important."

To that end, Hartley has been hired by GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of a medication recently approved by the FDA for bipolar disorder, to let people know that their lives can return to balance if diagnosed and treated appropriately.

Bipolar disorder is a serious, chronic illness accompanied by disabling mood swings from high (manic) to low (depressed). While the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill reports that bipolar disorder afflicts more than 3 million Americans, a new study estimates this number could be around 7 million.

Martha Stewart

August 3, 1941

Stewart is a popular Polish-American television and magazine personality known for her cooking, gardening, etiquette, and arts and crafts projects, and as a general lifestyle guide and homemaker. Starting in 2002 her career was rocked by a scandal involving her sale of shares in a drug company days before its application for a new drug was denied. She was eventually convicted of lying to investigators and sentenced to prison in 2004

It is believed that many CEO's of big corps are bipolar (I have heard speculation that Martha Stewart is bipolar). It is believed to be inherited and in a cluster of similar disorders that are all believed

Brian Douglas Wilson

June 20, 1942

Musician, Composer (Beach Boys) Brian Wilson (born in Hawthorne, California) is an American pop musician, best known as a founding member of and the main producer, composer, and arranger for The Beach Boys

Wilson's creativity reached its heights during the mid-1960s with songs like "Good Vibrations", the Pet Sounds album (which, according to Paul McCartney, heavily inspired The Beatles ' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and the then-unreleased SMiLE project. He also was the owner of a health food shop in Hollywood that lasted a year from its founding in the summer of 1969, the "Radiant Radish".

Following a breakdown as a result of mental illness and drug abuse in the 1970s, he partially recovered to try a career as a solo artist in the 1980s with limited success. His efforts were both encouraged and hampered by the influence of his psychiatrist, Dr. Eugene Landy, and partially due to Landy's extreme control over Brian's life, Wilson quit working with the Beach Boys on a regular basis after the release of The Beach Boys in 1985. Landy's illegal use of psychotropic drugs on Wilson and his interference in all of his affairs was finally legally ended by Brian's brother Carl. His final release as part of the group was on the 1996 album Stars and Stripes, a group collaboration with select country music artists singing the lead vocals.

Larry Claxton Flynt

November 1, 1942

Flynt is the head of Larry Flynt Publications (LFP), producing over twenty magazines, including Hustler with an annual turnover of around $150 million. He took part in several legal battles involving the First Amendment. He suffers from bipolar disorder and is paralyzed from the waist down after an assassination attempt.

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

November, 1942 - September 18, 1970

Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer who is widely considered to be the most important electric guitarist in the history of popular music. As a guitarist, he built upon the innovations of blues stylists such as B. B. King, Albert King, T-Bone Walker, and Muddy Waters, as well as those of R&B guitarists like Curtis Mayfield

Meanwhile, back in England, Hendrix's wild-man image and musical gimmickry (such as playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his back continued to bring him publicity, although he was to become more and more frustrated by media and audience concentration on his stage act and his early hits, and his increasing difficulty in getting his newer music accepted.

Hendrix remained in England, and on September 18 he was found senseless in bed in the hotel room of a German girlfriend Monika Dannemann after taking a reported nine vesperax sleeping pills and choking on his own vomit. He died later in St Mary Abbots Hospital, South Kensington. His body was returned home and he was interred in the Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, Washington

Jeannie C. Riley

October 19, 1945

Crippled by bipolar depression for years

Jeannie Carolyn Riley, née Stephenson, was just 23 when she rocketed to stardom with the overnight sensation "Harper Valley PTA" in 1968. Her sudden success proved overwhelming; her young marriage to childhood sweetheart Mickey Riley ended in divorce in 1970. However, after she became a born-again Christian, she and Riley remarried a few years later.

She continued recording country songs but never again came close to achieving the success of "Harper Valley PTA." Jeannie recorded gospel music and wrote an autobiography, From Harper Valley to the Mountain Top, published in 1980.

According to one source, Jeannie's family had her committed to a hospital for evaluation, probably in 1994, after she fell into a deep depression.

Kay Redfield Jamison

October18th, 1946

Jamison is an American psychologist and science writer who is herself affected by manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder.

She is currently Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Works include:

· "An Unquiet Mind" (autobiography), ISBN 0679763309

· "Manic-Depressive Illness" (with Frederick K. Goodwin) ISBN 0195039343

· "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" (1993 (includes a study of Lord Byron, ISBN 068483183X

· "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide", ISBN 0375701478

· "Exuberance: The Passion for Life" (2004), ISBN 037540144X

Jamison is the recipient of the National Mental Health Association's William Styron Award (1995), the American Suicide Foundation Research Award (1996), the Community Mental Health Leadership Award (1999), and a 2001 MacArthur Fellowhip recipient

Margaret Ruth Kidder

October 17, 1948,

Better known as Margot Kidder, is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Lois Lane in the 1978 movie and sequels.

She is also known for having bipolar disorder which led to a widely publicized breakdown in 1996. She is now an advocate of orthomolecular medicine as a treatment for bipolar disorder.

Ozzy Osbourne (John Michael Osbourne)

December 3, 1948

Born in Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands, England, better known as Ozzy Osbourne, was the lead singer of the rock band Black Sabbath and later a popular solo artist. Osbourne has been married twice and is father to five children: Jessica Hobbs and Louis Osbourne by first wife Thelma; and Aimee, Kelly and Jack, by current wife Sharon . He is also a football fan, supporting Aston.

Black Sabbath met with swift and enduring success; their early records such as their self-titled debut, Paranoid and Master of Reality in particular are considered heavy metal canon, and selections from Ozzy's Sabbath days have featured prominently in his solo performances. The rigors of touring and financial success combined to lead some of the band members to drug and alcohol abuse, including Osbourne. Nevertheless, the group remained a steadily successful act for over eight years. Over the duration, however, Iommi began to take the band's music in a more progressive and experimental direction, to Osbourne's distaste. Osbourne was kicked out of the group briefly after the band's 1976 effort Technical Ecstasy, and Sabbath went so far as to begin writing and recording with a new singer. Ozzy returned however, to record and tour behind 1978's Never Say Die, after which he left the group again in 1979, to be replaced by Ronnie James Dio. Depressed, his drug and alcohol abuse continued. He divorced his first wife, Thelma, and developed bipolar disorder Undaunted, Osbourne attempted to launch a solo career, and met with considerable success on his very first effort.

Phyllis Hyman

July 6, 1949 – June 30, 1995

(actress, composer, other crew member)

Deep-voiced and statuesque, Phyllis Hyman sang with a life affirming energy and emotional intensity found in few other female vocalists. Born in Pittsburgh in 1949 (and raised in Philadelphia), her professional career began in New York city where, during an engagement, she was spotted by producer Norman Connors and contemporaries Jean Carne and Roberta Flack among others. Phyllis was immediately offered a guest appearance on Connors' 'You Are My Starship' album (1976), which included her classic rendition of 'Betcha By Golly Wow' (previously a hit for The Stylistics in the early 1970s).
Her irrational, self-destructive behavior was becoming common knowledge to those inside the music industry, her friends and also her fans and on June 30th, 1995, only hours before a scheduled performance at the Apollo Theatre in New York, Phyllis' lifeless body was found in her apartment where all efforts to revive her failed. Her suicide, while shocking, was not a surprise to many insiders

Thomas Alan Waits

December 7, 1949

Thomas Waits is an American composer, singer, musician and actor

In the popular perception, however, he and his work remain mostly characterised by his rocky voice, his strong personality and theatrical presence on stage and the "late night smoky bars" humour of his texts ("I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."). Waits has been reported as having bipolar disorder. In essence, however, and despite his songs having been covered by famous stars such as Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart, Waits remains a cult performer, steadfastly outside the mainstream

Jane Pauley

October 31, 1950

Born in Indianapolis Jane Pauley is an American television news anchor and journalist.

From 1976 to 1989, she was the co-host of The Today Show While not the first female anchor of the show, she became a symbol for professional women, more specifically female journalists, in the 1980s. She shared anchor duties with Tom Brokaw and, later, Bryant Gumbel. In 1989, Pauley was abruptly replaced with Deborah Norville in a highly-publicized incident that led to accusations of ageism from Pauley, as she was thirty-nine at the time and Norville was only thirty. Accusations later surfaced that she was fired from her job because she refused to have a facelift. Pauley took a sabbatical from journalism around this time.

She hosted Dateline NBC from 1992 to 2003, when she announced her retirement. In 2004, she returned to television in The Jane Pauley Show, a syndicated chat show. On the show, she has discussed, at length, her problems in dealing with bipolar disorder. Pauley is known for revealing very little, if anything at all, on her private life, so the recent revelation came as a surprise to much of America

Sting Gordon Matthew Sumner, CBE

October 2, 1951[/b