Pete's Parkinson's Portraits- Francisco Franco

Like Mao and Hitler, Franco was a brutal dictator of the Twentieth Century. Like them, he suffered from Parkinson's Disease. Franco managed to hang on from the thirties to the mid seventies, miring Spain in his iron grip. "Our regime is based on bayonets and blood, not on hypocritical elections" he boasted, backing it up with his feared police the Guardia Civil.

Franco became the leader of Spain after defeating the communists and anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. This war was seen by many at the time as a a critical battle in the world-wide struggle against Facism, prefiguring WWII. Because of this idealistic foreigners like Hemingway, George Orwell and Arthur Koestler went to Spain to fight on behalf of the anti-facists. Each came out of the struggle marked for the rest of their lives by the collapse of the forces allied against Franco.

Franco continues to haunt the image of Spain years after his death. Guillermo Del Toro's searing recent film "Pan's Labyrinth" was inspired by the post-war reign of Franco, who maintained power until his death in 1975.

Pete's Parkinson's Portraits- Terry Thomas

Terry Thomas was a British comic actor. According to Wikipedia, he was especially well-known for his work in the 1960's films like "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" and "Monte Carlo or Bust". He was noted for his roles as a classic British upper-class cad and bounder.

Pete's Parkinson's portraits: Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White was a photographer who had an eye for images that would become iconic. Her Depression-era photos are eloquent in their simple black and white portrayal of a tough and quietly suffering people. She went on to make powerful photographs during world War II. As the war wound down in Europe she documented the horror of the concentration camps. The atrocity must have struck at her with particular force, as her father was Jewish.

Her career was a combination of art and high adventure. The website Gallery M (Where you can see some of her photographs) reports

During her unique career, Bourke-White was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, strafed by the Luftwaffe, stranded on an Arctic island, bombarded in Moscow, and pulled out of the Chesapeake when her chopper crashed. She was the first Western photographer to document Soviet industry after the revolution, to create a travelogue of Czechoslovakia and other Balkan states just before Hitler moved in to ignite World War II, and to be stationed in Moscow just before Germany bombed its former ally.

She died at 67 years of age from Parkinson's complications. A person of unusual toughness, she lived with the disease from 1956 through 1971, benefiting from then-experimental surgery. She left behind a remarkable collection of fine photographs as well as an example of courage and tenacity that sets a great model for all of us, not just those who have Parkinson's Disease.

Pete's Parkinson's Portraits: Adolph Hitler

Is it true we share our affliction with arguably the worst person ever? While nobody searched for or found conclusive proof in an autopsy, there is convincing evidence that the Nazi leader did have Parkinson's. Further, there is interesting speculation that the disease may have cost Germany the war.

In an article from Pub.med, maintained by the National Institutes of Health, the authors write:

"It has been proved that Adolf Hitler suffered from idiopathic Parkinson's disease. No indication for postencephalitic parkinsonism was found in the clinical symptoms or the case history. Professor Max de Crinis established his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in Hitler early in 1945 and informed the SS leadership, who decided to initiate treatment with a specially prepared 'antiparkinsonian mixture' to be administered by a physician."

As to how the disease affected Hitler, and hence the outcome of the war, the argument is outlined by the BBC as follows:

"The dictator suffered the disease, and the mental inflexibility associated with it could have been what led to his slow response to the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, researchers said at the International Congress on Parkinson's Disease in Vancouver.

Dr Tom Hutton, a neurologist who co-authored the study, said Hitler was suffering physical and mental symptoms of the disease, but his aides kept it secret.

He said that by the time of the Normandy landings, Hitler had suffered the disease for 10 years and would have had problems processing conflicting information - hence his initial refusal to allow Panzer divisions to move to the site of the invasion.

Hitler is said to have been convinced that the Allies would launch their attack at Calais."

Again we are forced to confront the ironies of Parkinson's Disease. Consider this, the stricken Fuhrer would not have survived the process of selection in which the weak and sick were culled from the death camps. With his symptoms aggravated by stress he would have advertised his own weakness and perished for it.

And this: For once, the illness does something good, helping to bring down a mass murderer and changing the course of history for the better. Yet one of the more acceptable traits of the disease, its slowness, left him in place long enough to ensure the massacre of millions of innocent Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others deemed subhuman or troublesome. Parkinson's Disease crept bit by bit through his system idly allowing Hitler to cause the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians from all sides, and to leave Europe in ruins. Even when it does right, Parkinson's does it wrong.

Pete's Parkinson's Portraits #6: Vincent Price

Click to enlarge (if you dare.)

Pete's PD Portraits #5: Mervyn Peake

This one is goin' out to my friends at PDUK. I hear the rest of you out there murmuring "Mervyn Peake ? Who in blazes was Mervyn Peake?

Glad you ask. Peake was one of the most formidable of those rare creators who earn distinction in more than one field. A talented writer and visual artist, the only comparison that he calls to mind is William Blake. Talent, style and good looks, Peake had it all, including Parkinson's.

Pete's PWP Portraits No.3: Muhammad Ali

An interesting project for me. While working on this drawing I noticed that his left eye seemed to say "I regard you with interest and professional detachment." His right eye seemed to say "I want to hit you so hard, your descendants will bear bruises for three generations."