Is Jared Leto a genius?
According to IMDb and other sources last week, actor Jared Leto has been diagnosed with gout. You might remember Leto from such great movies as Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, Lord of War, and Panic Room.
Gout has long been associated with drinking, but there is also some not-inconsiderable anecdotal evidence that gout is also associated with genius.
In his 1926 book A Study of British Genius, author Havelock Ellis wrote that gout "occurs so often, in such extreme forms, and in men of such pre-eminent intellectual ability, that it is impossible not to regard it as having a real association with such ability."
Check out this list of famed gout sufferers and tell me Leto is not in with a good crowd: Samuel Johnson, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Coleridge, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Joseph Conrad, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, and Leonardo da Vinci. Surely even Groucho Marx would want to be part of that club.
5 comments:
Do you really think he might be a genius?
Or is it more possible that he's a celebrity who might overdo it often in the drinking department.
He has that hollow drinkers look to me.
nah..i think the possibility is more likely that he is a piss head!
he may be in with a good crowd, but how many hollywood actors can you see there?
John Lydon hasn't got gout therefore the genius theory is disproven. So there.
hhhhmmmm, i worked for an attorney once with bad gout - jees at first I wrote bat gout - must still be into the Ballywood flick posted, anyway the attorney was extremely bright - married a really rich chick - really rich.
Radmila: Genius is an overused word these days, although it probably wasn't when that book was written in 1926. Sure, I daresay Jared drinks a lot, too. I think he could become one of the finest actors of his generation, but I don't really think there are many geniuses in the acting world.
Cappy: Hah, that's kind of just what I said in my comment to Radmila...
4D: John Lydon a genius. Hmm... A great and funny guy, undoubtedly, but genius? Maybe genius, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Diana: Well, there's got to be something genius about marrying into money, no?! But then there's also the connection between gout and sexual prowess, so maybe that was it.
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