Many people have learned the life story of John Nash from the Oscar winning film, "A Beautiful Mind," starring Russell Crowe, but the public was able to get a deeper insight into his life when Sylvia Nasar educated the public on the non-Hollywood version of his life.
Nasar, who holds a doctorate in economics and has written for such publications as Fortune, U.S. News & World Report, and The New York Times, wrote Nash's biography, "The Essential John Nash," on which the movie was based.
The author addressed a full theatre Wednesday night in Slee Hall as she traced the events that shaped Nash's life from his rise to an admired mathematical theorist to his disjunction from reality with the onset of Schizophrenia, which nearly cost him his family and himself.
Despite often being disengaged from reality, Nash was an admired mathematical theorist who won the Nobel Prize. According to Nasar, Nash's illness carried the same importance to him as his mathematical theories.
"His mathematical ideas came in the same manner as his delusions, so he understood them both equally as valid," said Nasar. "Nash was able to function in the earlier stages of his illness, and was only labeled as an eccentric genius. As the disease progressed his eccentricity developed into madness."
Nasar included aspects of Nash's life that were not included in "A Beautiful Mind," such as the existence of his first wife and his divorce and remarriage to his second wife.
"Alicia divorced John and moved with their son in hopes of starting over, but
Nash and his wife remarried last June when Nash was 73 years old.
"A Beautiful Mind" also excluded the fact that Nash's son was diagnosed with Schizophrenia at the age of 15.
Nasar also revealed that Nash almost did not win the Nobel Prize; the Prize was nearly retracted an hour before he was to accept the award.
"It's interesting to hear how much more there is to the story of John Nash than what was depicted in the movies, which are rarely close to factual," said Kyle Holtz, a junior sociology major.
According to Nasar, there are many stigmas attached to mental disease as a result of negative portrayal by the media. These stigmas caused Nash to be ostracized by those who once respected him.
"Many professors and friends of John Nash would walk by him in the street and treat him as a stranger," said Nasar.
Nasar, surprisingly, never had a one-on-one interview with Nash.
"John refused a formal interview with me while I was working on the book, only after he read it did we become friends," she said.
The lecture was presented by the School of Social Work and the Erie County Department of Mental Health. It closed with questions from the audience followed by a book signing by Nasar.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
