BIKERS CLUB MAY 2019 ISSUE | Page 40

John Nash Nick Vujicic Another example of a celebrity with a disability who broke the mould is John Nash, an American mathematician whose life, marked by acute paranoid schizophrenia, is known to us thanks to the film "A Beautiful Mind" Award of his illness, Nash fought against it and developed a successful academic career that earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. Nick Vujicic is another world-famous celebrity with disability, and founder of Life Without Limbs - an organisation for people with physical disabilities. Stephen Hawking He is currently giving motivational talks around the world, has written several books and is regular on talk shows and TV programs. He became very famous when starring in the touching short film "The Butterfly Circus". A theoretical physicist astrophysicist, cosmologist, and eminent scientist, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS at age 21; he was given 2 years to live. He lived until he was 76 years old. He had been paralysed from head to toe for over thirty years and used a voice synthesiser to be able to communicate, and a wheelchair that he operated through slight movements of the head and eyes. None of this prevented him from developing his activity as an exemplary researcher and professor, and intense personal life that allowed him to make his illness known to the world. Becoming one of the most recognisable celebrities of our time, his story was taken to the cinema in the film "The Theory of Everything". Vujicic was born in 1982 with no limbs. he claims that as a child he suffered ridicule and discrimination, and tried to commit suicide but, with time, he learned to see his own potential. Andrea Boccelli Tenor, musician, writer and musical producer of Italian origin, Andrea Boccelli has sold more than 75 million records. He was born with congenital glaucoma that left him partially blind, something that did not prevent him from taking piano lessons until the age of six. However, at the age 12 he suffered a blow during a football game that left him completely blind. Endowed with a spirit of innate improvement, he decided to focus entirely on music, specifically on singing. He also studied Law. Boccelli has received numerous awards of international prestige and even has a beach named after him on the Adriatic.