This is meant to be an illustrative rather than a comprehensive list; for systematic studies, see text. Most of the writers, composers, and artists are American, British, European, Irish, or Russian; all are deceased . . . Many if not most of these writers, artists, and composers had other major problems as well, such as medical illnesses, alcoholism or drug addiction, or exceptionally difficult life circumstances. They are listed here as having suffered from a mood disorder because their mood symptoms redated their other conditions, because the nature and course of their mood and behavior symptoms were consistent with a diagnosis of an independently existing affective illness, and/or because their family histories of depression, manic-depressive illness, and suicide--coupled with their own symptoms--were sufficiently strong to warrant their inclusion."
KEY: H = Asylum or psychiatric hospital S = Suicide SA = Suicide attempt =-=-=-=-= Writers Hans Christian Andersen Honore de Balzac James Barrie Arthur Benson (H) E.F. Benson James Boswell William Faulkner (H) F. Scott Fitzgerald (H) Lewis Grassic Gibbon (SA) Nikolai Gogl Maxim Gorky (SA) Kenneth Graham Graham Greene Ernest Hemingway (H, S) Hermann Hesse (H, SA) Henrik Ibsen William Inge (H, S) Henry James William James Charles Lamb (H) Malcolm Lowry (H, S) John Bunyan Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) Joseph Conrad (SA) Charles Dickens Isak Dinesen (SA) Ralph Waldo Emerson Herman Melville Eugene O'Neill (H, SA) Francis Parkman John Ruskin (H) Mary Shelley Jean Stafford (H) Robert Louis Stevenson August Strindberg Leo Tolstoy Ivan Turgenev Tennessee Williams (H) Mary Wollstonecraft (SA) Virginia Woolf (H, S) Emile Zola =-=-=-=-=-= Composers Anton Arensky Hector Berlioz (SA) Anton Bruckner (H) Jeremiah Clarke (S) John Dowland Edward Elgar Carlo Gesualdo Mikhail Glinka George Frederic Handel Gustav Holst Charles Ives Otto Klemperer (H) Orlando de Lassus Gustav Mahler Modest Mussorgsky Sergey Rachmaninoff Giocchino Rossini Robert Schumann (H, SA) Alexander Scriagbin Peter Tchaikovsky Peter Warlock (S) Hugo Wolf (H, SA) Bernd Alois Zimmerman (S) =-=-=-=-=-= Nonclassical composers and musicians Irving Berlin (H) Noel Coward Stephen Foster Charles Mingus (H) Charles Parker (H, SA) Cole Porter (H) Bud Powell (H) Kurt Cobain, musician (Nirvana) (S 1994) =-=-=-=-=-= Poets Antonin Artaud (H) Konstantin Batyushkov (H, SA) Charles Baudelaire (SA) Thomas Lovell Beddoes (S) John Berryman (H, S) William Blake Aleksandr Blok Barcroft Boake (S) Louis Bogan (H) Rupert Brooke Robert Burns George Gordon, Lord Byron Thomas Campbell Paul Celan (S) Thomas Chatterton (S) John Clare (H) Harley Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge William Collins (H) William Cowper (H, SA) Hart Crane (S) George Darley John Davidson (S) Emily Dickinson Ernest Dowson T.S. Eliot (H) Sergey Esenin (S) Robert Fergusson (H) Afanasy Fet (SA) Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea Edward FitzGerald John Gould Fletcher (S) Gustaf Froding (SA, H) Oliver Goldsmith Adam Lindsay Gordon (S) Thomas Gray Nikolai Gumilyov (SA) Robert Stephen Hawker Friedrich Holderlin (H) Gerard Manley Hopkins Victor Hugo Randal Jarrell (H, S) Samuel Johnson John Keats - More Henry Kendall (H) Velimir Khlebnikov (H) Heinrich Von Kleist (S) Walter Savage Landor Nikolaus Lenau (H) J.M.R. Lenz (SA) Mikhail Lermontov Vachel Lindsay (S) James Russell Lowell Robert Lowell (H) Hugh MacDiarmid (H) Louis MacNeice Osip Mandelstam (H, SA) James Clarence Mangan Vladimir Mayakovsky (S) Edna St. Vincent Millay (H) Alfred de Musset Gerard de Nerval (H, S) Boris Pasternak (H) Cesare Pavese (S) Sylvia Plath (H, S) Edgar Allan Poe (SA) Ezra Pound (H) Alexander Pushkin Laura Riding (SA) Theodore Roethke (H) Delmore Schwartz (H) Anne Sexton (H, S) Percy Bysshe Shelley (SA) Christopher Smart (H) Torquato Tasso (H) Sara Teasdale (H, S) Alfred, Lord tennyson Dylan Thomas Edward thomas Francis Thompson George Trakl (H, S) Marina Tsvetayeva (S) Walt Whitman =-=-=-=-=-= Artists Ralph Barton (S) Francesco Bassano (S) Ralph Blakelock (H) David Bomberg Francesco Borromini (S) John Sell Cotman Richard Dadd (H) Edward Dayes (S) Thomas Eakins Paul Gauguin (SA) Theodore Gericault Hugo van der Goes Vincent van Gogh (H, S) - Arshile Gorky (S) Philip Guston (H) Benjamin Haydon (S) Carl Hill (H) Ernst Josephson (H) George Innes (SA) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (H, S) Edwin Landseer (H) Edward Lear Wilhelm Lehmbruck (S) John Martin Charles Meryon (H) Michelangelo Adolphe Monticelli Edvard Meunch (H) Jules Pascin (S) Georgia O'Keeffe (H) Raphaelle Peal (H) Jackson Pollock (H) George Romney Dante Gabriel Rossetti (SA) Mark Rothko (S) Nicolas de Stael (S) Pietro Testa (S) Henry Tilson (S) George Frederic Watts Sir David Wilkie Anders Zorn =-=-=-=--= Family Ties Here are a couple of more paragraphs, from pages 236 - 237 of "Touched With Fire; Manic-Depressive Ilness and the Artistic Temperament." [she writes about the family trees of afflicted people] "All these pedigrees demonstrate the wide range of expression of a genetic illness, from its milder forms, which can appear as temperaments, to the more psychotic and suicidal forms that appear as full-blown manic depressive insanity. "Obviously, many other writers, artists, and composers had family members who suffered from manic-depressive illness or severe recurrent depressions, were declared insane and committed to asylums or hospitals, or committed suicide. Those with at least ONE SERIOUSLY AFFECTED FIRST-DEGREE RELATIVE (often there were several include):
Hans Christian Andersen Konstantin Batyushkov Arthur and E.F. Benson Elizabeth Bishop Aleksandr Blok Charlotte and Emily Bronte Anton Bruckner Thomas Campbell Thomas Chatterton Samuel Clemens John Sell Cotman Gustave Courbet Richard Dadd Isak Dinesen Ernest Dowson Thomas Eakins Ralph Waldo Emerson Edward FitzGerald Robert Frost Thomas Gainsborough Johann Wolfgang Goethe Nikolai Gogol Kenneth Graham Thomas Gray Hermann Hesse Charles Lamb Louis MacNeice John Martin Marianne Moore Edvard Meunch Francis Parkman Walker Percy Sylvia Plath Jackson Pollock Cole Porter Edwin Arlington Robinson Dante Gabriel Rossetti Giocchino Rossini John Rishkin Alexander Scriabin Robert Louis Stevenson Peter Tchaikovsky J.M.W. Turner Walt Whitman Emile Zola =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "These findings are consistent with those of Dr.S Andreasen, McNeil, Richards, and Karlsson (chapter 3) showing that mental illness and creativity tend to aggregate in certain families and not in others. The high rates of mood disorders and suicide in the literary and artistic families portrayed in this chapter are also consistent with studies showing greatly increased rates of manic depressive and depressive illness in the first degree relatives of individuals who have manic depressive illness. "It is important to emphasize, however, that many writers and artists have no family history of these illnesses, nor do they themselves suffer from depression or manic depressive illness. This point is critical. The basic argument of this book is not that all writers and artists are depressed, suicidal, or manic. It is, rather, that a greatly disproportionate number of them are; that the manic depressive and artistic temperaments are causally related to one another. The genetic basis of manic depressive illness provides not only one part of this argument, but also the constitutional core of a determining temperament, one providing in part the sealed orders with which so many sail." =--=-=-=-==-=-=-= 2>Living bi-polars Here is my ongoing list of famous LIVING bipolars (manic depressives) and famous LIVING unipolars (depression only). Famous Living Bipolars This list is being compiled gradually as people who are bipolar release this information to the public. The following individuals have stated publicly that they are bipolar:
Robert Boorstin, writer, special assistant to Pres. Clinton Rosemary Clooney, singer Dick Cavett, writer, media personality Kitty Dukakis, former First Lady of Massachusetts Patty Duke (Anna Pearce), actor, writer Connie Francis, actor, musician Peter Gabriel, musician Shecky Greene, comedian Kristin Hersh, musician (Throwing Muses) Peter Nolan Lawrence, writer Bill Lichtenstein, producer (TV & radio) Kristy McNichols, actor Kate Millett, writer Spike Mulligan, comic actor and writer, Patron of the MFD Murray Pezim [Country] Charley Pride, musician Axl Rose, musician John Strugnell, Biblical scholar, Harvard Ted Turner, entrepreneur, media giant (U.S.) Jonathon Winters, comedian, actor, writer, artist =-=-=-=-=-= Famous Living Unipolars These people have said publicly that they have had episodes of depression: Buzz Aldrin, astronaut Rona Barrett, entertainment reporter, author Art Buchwald, writer Barbara Bush, former First Lady (U.S.) Ray Charles, musician Eric Clapton, musician Dick Clark, television personality (American Bandstand) Leonard Cohen, musician, writer Francis Ford Coppola, director Michael Crichton, writer Kathy Conkrite, writer (daughter of Walter Conkrite) Sheryl Crow, musician Mike Douglas, media personality Tony Dow, actor, director Thomas Eagleton, former politician; professor James Farmer, civil rights activist (1960s to present) Jules Feiffer, playwright, screenwriter, cartoonist Albert French, writer John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, educator, author Mariette Hartley, actor Stephen Hawking, physicist{world's smartest man] Anthony Hopkins, actor Salvador Luria, scientist (bacterial genetics), Nobel Laureate Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor (U.S.) Sarah McLachlan, musician Charley Pell, former coach, Univ of Florida Bonnie Raitt, musician Joan Rivers, comedienne, talk show host Roseanne, actor, writer, comedienne, also has MPD & OCD Linda Sexton, writer (daughter of Anne Sexton) Rod Steiger, actor William Styron, writer Kate Taylor, musician James Taylor, musician Livingston Taylor, musician Mike Wallace, news anchor
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