Who are some renowned people who are/were color blind in one regard or another? I found out today that I have Protanomalia, and have gone my whole life having a form of color blindedness without being aware in the least. I’d like some consolation. Heh.
Dragon Phoenix for starters.
What kind of colorblindness is that, Daoloth?
I had a friend who claimed to be colorblind, but he was lying… or that’s what we’re pretty sure of now…
It’s a mutation that means I don’t see variations in red as well as most everyone else. The Army insists that because I failed two tests overall (basic Red-Green tests), I cannot see color. But this is simply absurd. I have always been able to distinguish color find, and utter colorblindedness is exceedingly rare.
Ah. Does sound stupid.
Just so you know, the reference to my friend wasn’t intended to disparage your situation.
True, but it does happen. The most famous person I’m aware of who has that particular condition is John Kay of Steppenwolf fame. It’s called (if I can spell it right) achromotopsia and those who have it are sometimes called achromats.
If I recall correctly, Paul Newman has a more conventional form of colorblindness.
And, while I don’t claim to be famous, I myself have the variant where I don’t see shades of green as well as everyone else. Like the OP, I’ve had it all my life but I didn’t know it until I took the FAA eye exam for my pilot’s license. Other than that, it’s never been a problem.
I googled it and apparently the late Mr. Rogers was. I don’t know how sturdy that fact is, I found it here. I’m sure there have been plenty of famous colorblind people, because, they pretty much have to tell you that they are.
This claims that chemist John Dalton was colorblind.
Anthony Burgess (so I guess he could have titled it “A Clockwork Orange - Or Maybe Green, I’m Not Sure.”)
After Tampa Bay quarterback Vinny Testaverde threw 35 interceptions in 1988, he revealed he was colorbrind. Predictably, the disclosure led to numerous gibes from fans. More constructive was the Buccaneers’ reaction – an attempt to redesign the club’s uniforms in order for Testaverde to have more success at distinguishing teammates from opponents.
Since the link doesn’t spell it out, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that, not only was Dalton certainly colourblind, he actually discovered the symptom by realising that his colour perception was different from most other people. And, while I doubt that Hello! will be doing the feature on his “amazing Manchester laboratory” any time soon, his other achievements, particularly in the field of atomic theory, surely qualify him as famous.
I don’t recall any of the affected soldiers becoming famous, but I’ve read that during the Normandy campaign in WWII, Allied ground forces discovered that some color-blind soldiers could more readily distinguish dead foliage being used as camouflage from live foliage than could their mates.
Actually, the Spanish word for colorblind is daltónico or daltoniano, after him.
Testaverde apparently IS colorblind, but that just doesn’t work as an excuse. NFL teams possess two sets of jerseys - a colored set and a white set - specifically so that all games can feature a team in dark jerseys playing a team in white jerseys, allowing them to be told apart easily. Being colorblind should actually be very little hindrance to him.