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Sad news about Brad Pitt. The announcement was made by the great actor himself:

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Mar 13, 2024 / 2723 Views

Actor Brad Pitt revealed in a recent interview that he suffers from prosopagnosia, a rare neurological disorder also known as “facial blindness.”

Dani Blum describes the disorder’s signs, causes, and remedies in an article for the New York Times.

Borna Bonakdarpour, a behavioral neurologist at Northwestern Medicine, claims that face blindness—not color blindness or general vision impairment—is the main symptom of prosopagnosia.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke states that there is no connection between the illness and memory loss, vision problems, or learning impairments.

Blum continues, “It is not the same as forgetting or occasionally having trouble finding the correct word.

The severity of prosopagnosia will differ from person to person.

For instance, some people might have problems identifying a familiar face, such as that of a close friend or relative, while others might have trouble identifying their own reflection.

Additionally, some people might not be able to distinguish between faces and objects.

Notably, some data indicates that individuals with prosopagnosia may have chronic anxiety or depression due to the loneliness and fear that are frequently associated with the illness.

Blum notes that some people avoid contact with family members and other loved ones out of concern that they won’t be able to properly recognize or acknowledge them.

“Navigating basic social relationships with prosopagnosia can become difficult,” she says.

Pitt admitted that he has trouble recognizing people’s faces for years in a recent interview with GQ, despite never having gotten a formal prosopagnosia diagnosis.

In fact, Pitt claimed in a 2013 interview with Esquire that his difficulty recognizing people’s appearances was so great that it frequently made him want to isolate himself.

He explained, “That’s why I stay at home.

What is the condition’s cause?

People who are diagnosed with prosopagnosia often fall into one of two categories: either they are born with it or they acquire it.

However, estimations reveal that as many as one in every 50 people may struggle with some lifetime form of the disorder, and experts hypothesize that it may run in families.

According to Blum, research “suggests that congenital, or lifelong, prosopagnosia is less prevalent.”

According to Andrey Stojic, director of general neurology at the Cleveland Clinic, children born with the illness “don’t seem to have any visible structural abnormality” in the brain.

Notably, doctors don’t fully understand what causes congenital prosopagnosia because there aren’t any obvious brain lesions in persons who have it.

In contrast, people who develop prosopagnosia later in life may have brain abnormalities brought on by a trauma or head injury.

According to Bonakdarpour, individuals can also develop prosopagnosia while dealing with Alzheimer’s illness or following a stroke.

What therapies are available for prosopagnosia?

Prosopagnosia is now untreatable, according to Bonakdarpour. The problem can be treated, though.

People who have the syndrome frequently attempt to distinguish between people by focusing on physical characteristics like hair color, gait, or voice.

Stockard Channing: The star from ‘Grease’ is 80 & looks unrecognizable now

After all these years, I don’t think there’s ever been a more charismatic or relatable Rizzo than Stockard Channing.

Channing was a great artist and her singing was just fantastic in Grease – but nowadays, the 80-year-old looks almost unrecognizable.

The first movie I ever saw Stockard Channing in was called The Big Bus and I thought it was hilarious. But back then, I could never imagine that she would go on and have such a remarkable career.

Today, Stockard Channing is best known for her iconic portrayal of Betty Rizzo in Grease, the 1978 American musical romantic comedy film based on the 1971 musical of the same name. Like many before me have pointed out, Channing was by far the best Rizzo out of all that have played the part.

Many probably also recognize Channing from the series The West Wing, where she starred as First Lady Abbey Bartlet. The experienced actress was praised for her instant chemistry with Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Barlet.

“It just worked,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2020.

“We had this chemistry from the beginning. I don’t know what it was, but we had it and it didn’t go away. It was a happy accident.”

Starring as Beth Rizzo

But let’s take a deeper look at the highlight of Channing’s career. Because in the name of honesty, she hasn’t appeared in any major motion picture since Grease, even though she has continued to act in films and on Broadway.

The 13-time Emmy Award nominee and seven-time Tony Award nominee appears to be totally fine with being most remembered for her portrayal of bad girl Beth Rizzo, one of the Pink Ladies in Grease.

But is that really the whole truth?

Back in 1973, Channing had little breakthrough starring in the TV-movie The Girl Most Likely to…, a black comedy about revenge.

“A lot of people talk about the G-word [Grease] and all of that, but back in the day, I had as many people stop me in the street about that one movie. Because it’s about revenge, and people would sit in their living rooms and go, ‘Oh, I’m the only person watching this’ or ‘this person understands me.’ I’m not kidding. It was a million years ago, and then it was the highest-rated movie of the week. Revenge always works,” she says.

According to Channing, she has only watched Grease only two times.

“I used to be grumpy about Grease because I thought it was a kids’ movie or something. But now it’s sort of amazing. I’m very proud of it,” she told The Times in 2019.

The Manhattan-born actress was 33 years old when she played Rizzo and playing a high school teenager wasn’t so easy for her.

”I was so much older than she was in life, but I could not think about that so I sort of threw myself back to what I felt when I was her age over, even younger. The complexity of adolescents and hormones and sexuality and all of that other stuff. Seeing that I really was older I think that added to the isolation of Rizzo,” Channing told Broadway World.

Channing, who became interested in acting at an early age, was thrilled when she was offered the role of Rizzo, and her performance made her a top-ranking star in the late 1970s. She earned a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress, but the New York native had difficulty achieving similar success after Grease.

The beloved actress was handed two sitcoms of her own, Stockard Channing in Just Friends (1979) and The Stockard Channing Show (1980), but neither was successful and her career halted.

But with her look of Elizabeth Taylor and air of calm confidence, Channing didn’t give up and she continued to work as an actress, appearing in many highly-praised movies and stage plays. Her latest appearance on the big screen came was in Angry Neighbors, which premiered in 2022.