Famous People with ADHD

The following is a repost, with some editing, of a page from

Alan Simons, ARNP

(Note: I do not endorse medication as a treatment.)

Source: http://www.alansimons.com/FamousPeoplewithADHD.en.html

Each of the people on the list below have either been diagnosed professionally

or their biographies show behavior patterns of ADHD. A lot of people on this list were misunderstood and under-appreciated for a

long time but with resilience and persistence, help, support, and a little

luck made a life that contributed. Some even learned to be happy. Can the rest of us mere mortals learn something from the lives of these

people--both about what may help us and also what we don't want in our lives? We have discovered 95% of everything we've ever known about the brain

since 1993. We now have technologies, medications and strategies

that most on this list never had.

Architect

Frank Lloyd Wright

Artists

Salvador Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Pablo Picasso

Rodin

Vincent Van Gogh

Athletes

Terry Bradshaw

Andre Brown

Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner

Michael Jordan

Jason Kidd

Carl Lewis

Greg Louganis

Michael Phelps

Pete Rose

Babe Ruth

Nolan Ryan

Jackie Stewart

Alberto Tomba

Andres Torres  

Does because a lot of these people achieved what they did without

current technologies, medications and strategies mean that the

rest of us should be able to do the same?  

You could say these are "The Top Ten-Percenters." They had

extraordinary gifts that were uniquely honed by the time and

environment in which they lived.

Most of these had significant struggles that delayed and/or diminished

their work, home and social lives.  Could they have developed even

better lives with fewer struggles if they had access to

and took advantage of current help?

Authors

Han Christian Anderson

Charlotte and Emily Bronte

Lewis Carroll

Agatha Christie

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

Emily Dickinson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Robert Frost

Samuel Johnson

Edgar Allan Poe

George Bernard Shaw

Henry David Thoreau

Leo Tolstoy

Jules Verne

Tennessee Williams

Virginia Woolf

William Butler Yeats

Of course, for every one listed on this page there have been

millions of others with ADHD who are/were not famous and

who are/were just as special.

Composer

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Beethoven

Handel

Puccini

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders

Richard Branson (Virgin)

Andrew Carnegie

Walt Disney

Malcolm Forbes (Forbes Magazine)

Henry Ford

Bill Gates

William Randolph Hearst

David Neeleman (Jet Blue)

Paul Orfalea (Kinkos)

Charles Schwab

Ted Turner

F.W. Woolworth

We are all ADHD snowflakes.  Some of these people were/are

bashful and like to be by themselves.

Some are out-going and are more comfortable being with people.

Some are more physically active and some are quietly focusing

on more still activities.

Explorers

Christopher Columbus

Lewis and Clark

Admiral Richard Byrd

Entertainers

Ann Bancroft

Harry Belafonte

George Burns

Jim Carrey

Cher

Bill Cosby

Zooey Duschanel

Danny Glover

Whoopi Goldberg

Woody Harrelson

Mariel Hemingway

Dustin Hoffman

Solange Knowles

Avril Lavigne

Adam Levine

John Lennon

Howie Mandel

Steve McQueen

Jack Nicholson

Ellen Page

Ty Pennington

Elvis Presley

Evil and Robbie Knievel

George C Scott

Karina Smirnoff

Will Smith

Tom Smothers

Suzanne Somers

Steven Spielberg

Sylvester Stallone

James Stewart

Justin Timberlake

Lindsay Wagner

Emma Watson

Robin Williams

Henry Winkler

Stevie Wonder

How about the millions of others with ADHD who lived good

and satisfying lives and who are/were not famous?  How about

the even greater number who because they didn't have access

to the hidden gifts within them, didn't have the supportive help to

guide them, or the luck of the draw to have been born in a place

and/or time so they could learn and use the advanced technologies

we have now?

Inventors

Alexander Graham Bell

Thomas Edison

Benjamin Franklin

Wright Brothers

Photographer

Ansel Adams

Political Figures

James Carville

Prince Charles

Winston Churchill

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert Kennedy

Abraham Lincoln

Woodrow Wilson

Scientists

Harvey Cushing, MD

Albert Einstein

Michael Faraday

Galileo

Stephen Hawking

James Clerk Maxwell

Isaac Newton

Louis Pasteur

Werner von Braun